The
water conduit path “Sentier du Bisse” leading to the glacier
Placed under the
theme of “water”, the Sentier du Glacier follows the Chemin du Bisse (water
conduit path), the Route de la Prise (water supply point) and the old road to the Col de
la Forclaz. Across fir and larch forests, you discover the history of the water conduit,
the ice trade in the 19th century and a section of the Decauville railway. On
the way back along the floor of the valley, you will pass different hydraulic
installations (water supply point, mill wheel).
Ice
trade
In 1865, Mr Maurice
Robatel obtained the exclusive rights to exploit the glacier of Trient. About thirty
workmen set up the drillings, separating the blocks with black powder, giving them a more
or less uniform shape, and throwing them with so called
"grespils" (long sticks equipped with iron hooks) on a
"rize" (channel made of larch sticks) where they glided at a terrific speed to a
reservoir covered with fir branches.
In 1883, Mr Claudius Bompard joined his brother-in-law Maurice Robatel. Together, they
established a Decauville railway for the transportation of the ice coming from the Col de
la Forclaz via the water conduit path. The departure of the trains was signalled by
telephone. The intermediate stations, "Gare de Lyon", "Gare de
Montparnasse", "Gare de Marseille" - all of them destinations of the ice
– were the junction points. Arriving from the Col de la Forclaz, 10 to 15 big wagons
were transported every day to the station of Martigny, that is 20’000 to 30’000
kilos of huge ice blocks. Once a week, a train left Martigny in the direction to the large
French cities (Lyon, Paris, Marseilles). About ten year later, the ice trade was
suspended, the Decauville railway turning out to be too weak to carry these loads.
The
creation of the water conduit
In 1895, a group of
farmers organized in a cooperative dug a water conduit alongside this road sufficiently
large to bring the water of the Trient glacier to the Col de la Forclaz. From there, the
water was directed into the Combe de Martigny to water the meadows and fields according to
an accurately established distribution timetable.
The watering through sprinkling under pressure replaced the water coming from the glacier
of Trient in the 1970s. The maintenance of the conduit was suspended and the water stopped
running. In 1986, with the support of the regional hiking federation Association
Valaisanne de Tourisme Pédestre, the Loterie Romande and the municipality of Trient, the
farmers’ cooperative repaired this famous water conduit that runs alongside the
superb walk starting at the Col de la Forclaz.
