The south ramp crosses this barren and fascinating landscape just above the Casse Déserte. I took the photograph a few days after the Tour de France race. I wanted to photograph the traces of the bike race visible on the asphalt, but without crowds of people and all the parked camper vans along the road.

View over the top of the pass – it is the rock cut at the intersection of the four roads in the centre of the photograph at 2715 m above sea level. The south-east ramp branches off to the right, the north ramp to the left. The ring road begins here, circles the Cime de la Bonette at 2802 m and thus becomes the highest through road in the Alps.

View of the south-east ramp in the first morning light. One of my favourite photographs from this series.
I wanted to photograph a view that gave a good view of the upper section of the pass along the Cime de Pelousette escarpment, together with the winding road below Mont des Fourches. The road passes through the hamlet of Bousieyas and leads down to the Tinée valley.

For me, the southern ramp is one of the most interesting landscapes of the Alpine passes.
The road was completed in 1937 and is part of the Route des Grand Alpes.
The photograph was taken one evening after a heavy rain shower. I hoped that the rain would stop or subside towards evening and indeed, as I walked along the road on my way back, the cloud cover suddenly opened up to reveal this view of the pass and the Lenta torrent.

The serpentines of Montvernier in the Maurienne are certainly one of the most beautiful mountain roads in the Alps. From the valley floor of the l’Arc river, the road winds in a moderate gradient over 17 serpentines to Montvernier, passing the Chapelle de la Balme and finally leading to the Col de Chaussy.

South-eastern ramp. The landscape on this side of the pass is of exceptional beauty. The road, like many passes in the Alps, was built by the French army between 1891 and 1911. There is not really a pass summit, instead you pass through a crest tunnel more than 500 metres long, which is completely dark and where the condition can vary between mud and ice.

View of the southern ramp of one of the most important Alpine crossings between the Swiss Rhone Valley and the Italian Aosta Valley.

View of the west ramp – connection between Tiefencastel and the Engadine.

View of the imposing west ramp and the Rhone glacier. Above the Hotel Belvédère is the Galenhütten artillery works of the Swiss military from the late 19th century, which served to protect the Gotthard fortress.

View of the old paved road a little below the pass summit. The first pass road over the Gotthard was completed as early as 1830.

View towards the Rhone glacier and the imposing west ramp.

View of the south-west ramp just below the top of the pass (2233 m) and the mountains Monte Gusela, Monte Nuvolau and Monte Averau.

View of the eastern ramp – the masterpiece of engineer Carlo Donegani. The first road was built between 1820 bis 1826 on behalf of the Austrian monarchy and was intended to connect Tyrol with Lombardy.

Wonderful wisps of clouds waft over the misty Lago Schener – one of my favourite images of the series.

The military mule road from the First World War supplied the Italian Army on Monte Pasubio

The ruins of two fortress towers on the pass summit covered in mist. The pass is a connection between the province Sondrio and the swiss canton of Grisons (Graubünden). The road is a one way road and was built as a maintenance road for two hydroelectric power plants.