Charmant Som
Charmant Som is a mountain in the French department of Isère, rising to in the Chartreuse Mountains in the Alps. It is made up of limestone, but its relief is less pronounced than that of the surrounding mountains, which is why it is covered with alpine meadows, the origin of its name. These have been occupied and tended by shepherds since the Middle Ages. They are accessible via a road built between the two world wars from the Col de Porte to below the main summit. The road leads to two buildings serving as inn, chalet and cheese dairy.
The mountain is part of the Chartreuse Regional Nature Park, a Natural area of ecological, faunal and floristic interest and a Natura 2000 zone. These protected areas are designed to preserve biodiversity. However, they are also ideal for hiking, speleology, cycling, climbing and paragliding.
Toponymy
This topographic toponym designating a mountain is an oronym.It was attested as Charmencson in 1357, Charmenson in 1540, Chalmenson in the Titres de la Grande Chartreuse in the 17th century, Charmanson in 1700 and 1725, Charmant Som on the Cassini map in the 18th century.
The name Charmant Som represents the alteration of a Chalmenson type, composed of the Latin summus "highest point" associated with the prelatin calmis and meaning "mountain pasture, above the forest limit, grassy summit, often of difficult access and sparse vegetation", hence the regional words chalm, chaume "bare height, pasture"; charme "summit pasture, uncultivated land". On the other hand, the etymology of the word "thatch", in "thatched roof", is different: it can be explained by the classical Latin calamus "reed".
Geography
Location
Charmant Som is located in southeastern France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and the Isère département, in the commune of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse. It lies some north of Grenoble and almost southeast of Lyon. It is part of the pre-Alpine Chartreuse Mountains.It is surrounded by La Grande Sure to the west, La Pinéa on the same ridgeline to the southwest, Chamechaude to the southeast, the Roc d'Arguille to the east and the Grand Som to the northeast.
Topography
The summit rises to an altitude of. At its foot are the Col de la Charmette to the west, the Col de Porte to the south and the Gorges du Guiers Mort to the north.The Charmant Som is shaped like a "Y". The junction of its three branches is formed by a rocky dome cut off to the north by cliffs forming the Promontory. The Chamechine ridge to the northwest shelters the Combe de l'If. To the northeast is the Bérard ridge. The southern branch, known as the Canaple ridge, has a gentler slope and is home to alpine pastures to which the D57d departmental road leads from the Col de Porte.
Geology
Unlike most Chartreuse mountains, Charmant Som is not a sharp crest, but a rounded mountain formed by the massif's median anticline. The three ridges and the summit are made of Urgonian limestone. Near the chalets to the south of the summit, in the dip, the Urgonian is covered by remnants of Senonian. To the north, in the anticlinal fold between the Chamechine ridge and the Bérard ridge, erosion has uncovered older layers: Hauterivian, then Fontanil limestone, Berriasian marly rock and Tithonic limestone.Climate
The Chartreuse Mountains are subject to an oceanic mountain climate. It acts as a barrier to the prevailing westerly winds from the Atlantic Ocean, and thus receives a large amount of precipitation, with a peak in early spring and another in early autumn. A third of this precipitation comes in the form of snow. As a result, the snowpack at the Col de Porte is around thick at the end of February, but reached record heights of for the same period in 1979, 1982 and 1985. However, average snow cover, which has halved over the last fifty years, has averaged over the last ten years. Since the 2000s, snow has averaged 150 days a year on the Col de Porte, thirty days less than in the 1960s; the presence of a snowpack greater than one meter has declined by an average of fifteen days every ten years over the same period. This observation coincides with a rise in temperatures over the last half-century, from 1 December to 30 April.Fauna and flora
Mammals include the chamois and chiropterans: the Western barbastelle, the Northern bat and the Brown long-eared bat. There is also evidence of the presence of the Eurasian lynx. Roe deer, wild boar and red deer frequent the central Chartreuse. Bird species at Charmant Som include the Golden Eagle, Wallcreeper, Alpine chough and Black Grouse. The Rosalia longicorn is a protected species of beetle.File:Veratrum album en Chartreuse.jpg|thumb|Veratrum album in the Charmant Som mountain pastures; often confused with Gentiana lutea when dry, it is toxic to both humans and livestock, although small quantities are eaten in autumn.
The rocky outcrops and forests of sycamore maple and Norway spruce are remarkable for their floristic diversity, and are home to some rare protected species. These include the Cypripedium calceolus. Other species found in these environments include the Aconitum anthora, the Aconitum variegatum, the Allium victorialis, the Arabis serpyllifolia, the Bupleurum longifolium, the Campanula latifolia, the Centranthus angustifolius, the Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, the Circaea alpina, the Clematis alpina, the Cystopteris montana, the Daphne alpina, the Galium obliquum, the Galium pseudohelveticum, the Gentiana cruciata, the Gymnadenia odoratissima, the Helictotrichon setaceum, the Hieracium lawsonii, the Hypericum nummularium, the Impatiens noli-tangere, the Laserpitium gallicum, the Limodorum abortivum, the Neottia cordata, the Lunaria rediviva, the Minuartia capillacea, the Orobanche laserpitii-sileris, the Peucedanum carvifolium, the Polystichum aculeatum, the Polystichum setiferum, the Potentilla nitida, the Primula auricula, the Rhodiola rosea, the Saxifraga muscoides, and the Tozzia alpina. The Viola calcarata, the Narcissus pseudonarcissus, the Dactylorhiza sambucina, the Trollius europaeus, the Gymnadenia nigra, the Lilium martagon, the Gentiana angustifolia, and the Veratrum album usually bloom on the 200 hectares of alpine pastures, which are maintained by pastoralism.
History
In the Middle Ages, Charmant Som was first owned by the Bonnevaux Abbey, founded in what is now the commune of Villeneuve-de-Marc, which made a short transhumance to the mountain from the Terres froides. It was then ceded to the Grande Chartreuse, a few decades after its foundation in 1084 in the Saint-Bruno valley, opposite the Charmant Som. The alpine pastures were cleared for grazing. The Orgeval oratory, dedicated to Saint Peter, was built around 1535 to mark the southern boundary of the monastery's possessions. Following the French Revolution in 1790, the mountain pasture became biens nationaux, and was sold to the Grenoble hospice in 1807. The presence of a summit cross is attested as early as 1902. After World War I, it was bought by the National Forests Office, who leased it by adjudication to Provençal shepherds, who re-established transhumance, resulting in the temporary loss of local cheese production.However, between 1932 and 1937, these same shepherds took advantage of the opportunity to build the current road in place of the old mule track leading to the mountain pastures. The Touring club de France, present in Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse since the founding of a tourist office in 1905 and encouraged by the commune's classification as a health resort, helped to make the road viable. He also took over a large part of the former haberts to transform them into a chalet, inaugurated in September 1937.
In 1941, in the midst of the scarcity caused by World War II, the National Forests Office decided to lease the mountain pastures to an entrepreneur from Les Adrets, who immediately handed over management to a resident of Theys, with the cattle being driven from these two Dauphiné villages at the foot of the Belledonne to the Chartreuse Mountains. At the same time, Jeunesse et Montagne and Chantiers de la jeunesse française camps were set up at Charmant Som, Col de Porte and Malamille. Initially supported by the Vichy France regime, these camps became part of the Resistance at the end of the war, taking in those who had refused Compulsory Work Service and joined the Maquis.
The Criska chasm was discovered in 1962 with the help of the eponymous dog of the Speleo-club cartusien, then explored by a member of the Grenoble Speleos of the Fédération Française des clubs alpins et de montagne. Over the next three years, a depth of was reached. During the summer of 1967 and spring of 1968, the Fontaine-La Tronche Speleo-group had to deal with a number of obturations, artificially widening the cave by blasting. Over the following months, they explored at depth, reaching. In 1969, bad weather forced speleology to explore the upper part of the network, linking the Criska chasm with the Vire cave, the Escalade shaft, the Corneilles shaft and the Aura shaft, which became the highest entrance in the network, at. Finally, on 27 September 1970, the final depth of was reached; the upper part of the network was de-equipped. The chasm was renamed Kriska Well. In 1976, the Ded network, named after André Méozzi, was one of the twenty deepest caves in the world.
A three-seater chairlift was installed in 1978. Built by Poma with a fixed-attachment system, it was one of the first of its kind in France. It is long and has a vertical drop of, with the arrival station close to the southern end of the mountain pastures, above the Canaple valley. Although attached to the Col de Porte ski area, it is located entirely within the commune of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse. Due to a lack of investment and after several vandalism incidents, operations ceased in the mid-2000s; unlike the rest of the Col de Porte resort, the chairlift was not reopened in 2009.
In 1992, the Orgeval oratory was restored and moved to the side of the road, where it leads out of the forest into the mountain pastures. Finally, in 1993, the Charmant Som mountain pasture was taken over by Savoyard farmers. The summit cross escaped the wave of vandalism suffered by many crosses in the Chartreuse Mountains in early 2000 and December 2001, and was replaced in 2006.