By 4×4 · September 2026 · Savoie and Aosta Valley
Volunteers at the Little St Bernard
A mountain trail race, two volunteers "with an off-road vehicle", two aid stations lost in remote combes and two nights in the rooftop tent under a full moon. A weekend when the Jeep was used for something other than travelling: being useful.
- Duration
- 3 days · late September
- Event
- Trail du Petit-Saint-Bernard
- Sunday race
- 68 km · 4,100 m ascent
- Vehicle
- Jeep Wrangler Rubicon · rooftop tent
Friday
Nine hours on the road, then the moon
Christian had signed up, without telling anyone, as a "volunteer with an off-road vehicle". Briefing in Bourg-Saint-Maurice on Friday at 6.30 pm, when we were barely back from the Grisons. So we cut that trip a day short, slept one night in our own bed, put the tent back on the Jeep's roof, and set off again.
That same evening, we reach the Bellaval combe, above the Ville des Glaciers, where our station is to stand. Arriving at night, alone in the mountains, under a full moon bright as day. Five degrees, the tent unfolding, silence. Magical and majestic.
Saturday, Bellaval combe
Running an aid station
At dawn we discover the spot that will be ours all day. The sun clears the ridge, three fellow volunteers arrive, and we set up the station: tables, shelter, water, cheese, salami, bananas, cake, bread to slice, fresh grapes and raisins laid out so the runners can refuel properly.
Then the first runner, the second, a whole pack. A few words, some encouragement, a little mothering, new water containers, more bananas to cut. People who did not know each other that morning sharing an entire day. The 2024 and 2025 editions were run in rain and snow; for us, blue skies both days.
Saturday afternoon
The pass behind us
All day we watched the runners climb the pass that closed off the combe. It looked "doable". Once the station was packed up, we walked up: five hundred metres of ascent, boulders, rock slabs, and at the top a vast view over the peaks and a lagoon-blue lake far below.
Two observations at the top. Mont Blanc stays hidden. And above all: how on earth did they get down that wall of scree? Our respect for these extreme runners went up another notch.
Saturday evening
The Little St Bernard, for want of a pasture
An apéritif in the sun on the square in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, phone signal back after hours without a connection, which was also part of the experience. Then back up to the Little St Bernard pass, from where we were to reach our Sunday post.
A misunderstanding about the location, a wrong turn, and the organiser forbids us to drive up at night: too dangerous. Bivouac behind the hospice, at the foot of the statue of Saint Bernard silhouetted by the moon, while the headlamps of the first night runners string a rosary of light across the pass.
Sunday, Berrio Blanc
Five hundred runners
Departure at seven, guided by Mauro, our Italian team leader and a man of rare kindness. Forty minutes of track from La Thuile, cows opening the way, the sun lighting up the ridges, up to the high pasture of Berrio Blanc and its little stone hut.
More than five hundred runners, thirsty, exhausted, all lovely and grateful. The day's race: 68 kilometres and 4,100 metres of ascent, the winner finishing in 8 hours 30. Sweeper and cut-off at 3.30 pm, then tidying, dismantling and counting stock until 5 pm. Up since 6 am, not a minute sitting down. Dead tired, but happy. One more new experience in our thrilling life.
