The Sassière stream

As its name suggests, this charming little stream is located in the Grande Sassière nature reserve, at the foot of the eponymous needle. It connects the Sassière lake and the Saut lake in the magnificent alpine environment of the Tarentaise.

The Aiguille de la Grande Sassière, or often simply the Grande Sassière, is a 3751 m high mountain in the Graian Alps, located south of the Mont Blanc group, or more precisely just southeast of the Petit Saint Bernard Pass, on the ridge that separates the west and east of this part of the Alps and forms the watershed between the Rhone (Isère) and the Po (Dora Baltea), and across which runs the national border between France and Italy. This ridge also forms the seam between the Aosta Valley and the historic Savoy in the Savoie department and, a few kilometers further southeast of the mountain, between the two adjacent national parks of Gran Paradiso and Vanoise, at the height where, within these protected areas, passes connect the north and south sides of the parks: to the west, the Col de l’Iseran Tarentaise (Isère) and Maurienne (Arc Valley), to the east of the Colle del Nivolet the Aosta Valley and the Orco Valley (Piedmont).