Walking with wolves

Picture this against the snow-clad backdrop of the Southern Alps. Sleeping under the stars in toasty sleeping bags, a fire nearby to keep you warm and the wild animals at arm’s length… and in the distance, wild wolves howling at the moon. Wolves and lynx were wiped out in France at the beginning of the twentieth century but populations in Italy and eastern Europe survived, and packs have ventured once again into the French Alps. This off-piste walking tour takes you into wolf territory, tracking the lupines, helping you identify wolf prints in the snow and, of course, promises sightings (subject to approval from the gods that determine these things) of chamois, mouflon, wild boar, deer and other prey. A glimpse of lynx — ‘the ghosts of the Alps’ — is more difficult but you never know…

The information

A wolf-tracking holiday is usually a three-day business and sets out from the commune of Gap, in southeastern France. See undiscoveredalps.com (from € 499) and responsibletravel.com (€ 444).