Long ago, there were no roads to the chalets in the high mountain pastures. All the material for a new chalet had to be carried up by man or mule, so the peasants who built and cared for these chalets used the nearest rocks available and found a way to extract the sand needed for cement right on the spot. They used to burn clods of earth for three days until all vegetable residue was burned away and only the minerals remained as pink sand
