Stairway to Heaven

When most people picture the Alps, they see a chocolate-box fantasy — clear blue skies, rolling meadows, happy cows with bells and picture-perfect wooden chalets. But there's another Alps, in the Western part - raw, exposed, biblical in scale. A place where gravel replaces grass, where military ghosts still whisper in the rocks, and where only the right machine will drive.

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WARMING UP Icons of Asphalt

You don't just hurl a car into the wild side of the Alps without a little foreplay. We eased our Defender into the adventure with some Swiss classics: the cobbled Tremola road beneath the St. Gotthard Pass, Furka Pass of James Bond fame with the derelict Belvedere Hotel — the backdrop to the famous Goldfinger car chase and still one of the most Instagrammed hairpin bends on the planet.

We crossed into Italy via Grand St. Bernard pass, slid over into France and then back into Italy again. A night in Susa, a medieval town tucked into the foothills, brought us pizza, wine and the hum of a busy piazza. The next day the real climbing would begin.

SOMMEILLER Stairway to the Sky

It started with a hut, a young guy and a sign: Strada del Sommeiller ["Sommeiller Road"] — €8. He waved us through like a border guard of the gods. Ahead of us, a gravel serpent lay slashing its way up to 3 002m — the highest legally reachable point in the Alps by motorised vehicle.

The cows and the sound of their bells disappeared as we climbed. Above the treeline the silence was broken only by