The Baisse de Courchon is a plateau pass at 920 m on the ridge above Moustiers-Sainte-Marie and the Lac de Sainte-Croix. Two quite distinct hiking routes lead to it under similar names — a short loop through the ravin de Notre-Dame, popularised online, and a longer official circuit waymarked by the Parc naturel régional du Verdon — and the same spot is also a paragliding take-off. This fact-sheet tells the two routes apart, cross-checks their figures, and flags what neither of them hides: the ravin de Notre-Dame has not been waymarked since 2018.
Verified on 22 August 2026 with altituderando.com, Chemins des Parcs (Parc naturel régional du Verdon) and the Moustiers-Sainte-Marie Tourist Office.
The essentials
| Distance | 5 km |
| Elevation gain | 330 m of elevation gain |
| Duration | 2h30 |
| Difficulty | Moderate |
| Type | Loop |
| Start | Cemetery and Sainte-Anne chapel car park (650 m) |
| High point | Baisse de Courchon (920 m) |
The truth about the numbers (two routes, not one measurement)
“Courchon” names both a place — the plateau pass at 920 m — and two real routes that climb to it along different paths, with different starting points. We tell them apart rather than merging them under a single figure.
| Route | Distance | Elevation gain | Duration | Start | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chapel only (without the ravine) | not given (262 steps) | 180 m | 30 min climb, round trip | Village centre | Moustiers tourist office, Verdon regional park |
| Baisse de Courchon via the ravine (reference retained) | 5 km | 330 m elevation gain | 2h30 | Cemetery / Sainte-Anne chapel car park | altituderando.com |
| Same loop, measured by Villa O Verdon | 6.5 km | 330 m elevation gain | 2h30 to 3h | same | Villa O Verdon |
| Same loop, start counted from the chapel | 4.8 km | 290 m elevation gain | 2h | Notre-Dame-de-Beauvoir chapel | lesdeuxpetitsbaroudeurs.com |
| Sentier de Courchon par la voie romaine (official circuit, waymarked) | 8.6 km | 548 m elevation gain | 3h | Stadium car park / Place de l’Église | Chemins des Parcs (Verdon regional park), Alpes de Haute-Provence Tourisme |
| Same official circuit, other measurement | 10 km | 450 m elevation gain | 2h30 | Moustiers-Sainte-Marie | voyageavecnous.fr, geo.fr |
No value is perfectly unanimous for the short loop: the distance ranges from 4.8 to 6.5 km and the elevation gain from 290 to 330 m depending on whether you count from the chapel or from the cemetery, and we could not establish whether the gap comes from a slightly different route or from a different way of measuring — only the altitude of the high point (920 m) is agreed on. For the official circuit, even the difficulty differs: “Moderate” for Chemins des Parcs, “Fairly difficult” for Alpes de Haute-Provence Tourisme — two public tourist ratings, not reconciled.
On the state of the ravin de Notre-Dame, however, recent sources converge. A dated account (altituderando.com, hike done on 4 January 2024, updated on 21 March 2024) reports, on passing through the ravine: “since 2018, […] the trail has been unmarked, and a sign draws attention to the difficulty and to the fact that it is no longer maintained.” lesdeuxpetitsbaroudeurs.com, for its part, describes the same section as “poorly waymarked”. We found no official notice from the town hall or the Park confirming a closure: what we report is a field observation, dated and consistent between two independent sources, not a published administrative decision. We therefore flag it as such rather than stating it as established fact.
The route
From the cemetery car park, at the foot of the Sainte-Anne chapel (built in 1616 on the remains of a 12th-century building, with stones from the village’s former rampart), the paved path climbs northwards. A waymarked out-and-back allows a detour to the Sainte-Madeleine cave, a shelter hollowed into the cliff said to have housed the first evangelising monks of Lérins, now fitted with a statue of Saint Mary Magdalene.
The path reaches the Notre-Dame-de-Beauvoir chapel (12th century, altered since), a place of pilgrimage whose renown goes back to medieval Marian miracles. From there, the route descends to the right into the ravin de Notre-Dame, crosses the bottom of it, then climbs back up its left bank through woods — the steepest section of the circuit, where hands are sometimes needed, and unmarked since 2018 (see above).
Leaving the ravine, the path runs south-east to the Baisse de Courchon (920 m), with views over the Lac de Sainte-Croix, the Valensole plateau and, in clear weather, Mont Ventoux and the Sainte-Baume. The return is by the Roman road, a zigzagging route presented by the Park and the Tourist Office as a remnant of an ancient communication road.
- Start: cemetery and Sainte-Anne chapel car park, southern exit of the village (650 m).
- Water: no water point along the route — bring at least 1.5 to 2 L per person.
- Footwear: hiking shoes, lugged soles recommended for the ravine.
- With children: the ravine passage is not recommended for young children by several sources; the climb to the chapel alone (262 steps, 30 min, round trip) remains a family option.
A longer, official, waymarked variant: the Sentier de Courchon par la voie romaine
The Parc naturel régional du Verdon publishes a second route under the name “Sentier de Courchon par la voie romaine” (circuit no. 63851 of its Chemins des Parcs network): a 8.6 km loop, 548 m elevation gain, counted at 3h, starting from the stadium car park or the Place de l’Église. It takes the chemin de la Maladrerie, passes near the ravin de Notre-Dame before joining the zigzags of the chemin de Courchon, then comes back down by the Roman road. Unlike the short loop, it remains waymarked GR / GRP / PR for most of its course — the safest option for anyone who wants to reach Courchon without committing to an unmaintained passage.
An optional and technical out-and-back (“steep”, according to Chemins des Parcs) allows you to reach, from this circuit, the anchor point of the chain of the Étoile de Moustiers: a 115 cm star hung from a 135 m chain between two rock walls, according to the Tourist Office, linked to the legend of the knight de Blacas, back from the Crusade in 1210.
Do not confuse
Two possible confusions, over the same word. Courchon is also the name of a paragliding take-off listed by the Fédération française de vol libre (site no. 1208), used by the Moustiers and Aiguines schools — the same place, a different activity. And the “Tour de Courchons”, a loop recorded near Saint-André-les-Alpes, on the shore of the Lac de Castillon, more than 50 km from Moustiers, has nothing to do with this Baisse de Courchon: only the name is similar.
What is still missing
We would rather say so: we found no official notice confirming or ruling out the exact state of the ravin de Notre-Dame today — only dated field observations, consistent but not institutional (see above). The distance gap between altituderando.com (5 km) and Villa O Verdon (6.5 km) for what seems to be the same loop also remains unreconciled. Finally, we could not establish whether the classic climb to the chapel (262 steps, Way of the Cross) follows exactly the same route as the chemin de la Maladrerie taken by the official circuit, or whether they are two separate accesses to the same part of the village: this point remains to be checked on the ground.
Sources
Data cross-checked and verified on 2026-08-22: altituderando.com (account of 4 January 2024, updated 21 March 2024), lesdeuxpetitsbaroudeurs.com, Villa O Verdon, Chemins des Parcs / Parc naturel régional du Verdon (circuit no. 63851 and 2020 PDF fact-sheet), Alpes de Haute-Provence Tourisme, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Tourisme, Moustiers-Sainte-Marie Tourist Office (moustiers.fr, including its page dedicated to the legend of the Étoile), voyageavecnous.fr, geo.fr, Fédération française de vol libre (FFVL), IGN 3442 OT. Discrepancies retained and flagged above. No data invented: a missing field is flagged as such.