I went back to France for a couple of weeks back home this summer and had a climb to the dome des ecrins lined-up over 2 days during the 24th and 25th of July. I was happy to be getting back in the snow at the end of July but a bit apprehensive due to my lack of fitness. I was hoping for the weather to hold-up which it kindly did except for the usual evening thunderstorms.

A couple of days before the hike I went to my friend's shop and he lent me some Petzl ice crampons as well as an ice axe. The same morning I was unfortunately pulling a Richard Cranium due to a bout of stomach flu I had caught in the south of France days earlier and was wondering whether I was gonna be able to make the hike. Not wanting to miss out, my favorite doctor put me on a course of antibiotics and the only thing I could feel on the morning of the hike 2 days later was just a sore throat.

I arrived at the "pre de Madame Carl" at the foot of Mont Pelvoux on the 24th at around 7.30am and started hiking by about 8am at a starting elevation of 1874m. The first few meanders of the hike were pretty easy: low incline, wide, well marked. As you start the hike uphill towards the Glacier Blanc, the valley of the Glacier Noir lies over to the left with its very large moraine. It is a popular route and there were quite a few peeps already on the trail. I first arrived to the passerelle (small bridge) that crosses the glacial run-off at an altitude of 2267m where I met a nice English family who snapped a couple of pics of me in front of the glacier (I did likewise for them). The glacier used to reach the passerell but has since pulled back by about 400-500m. The only time the glacier moved forward recently was in the 1980s when it moved forward by about 90m. I think it was linked to a volcanic eruption that year which cooled down the earth's atmosphere.

I kept on going and reached the old Tuckett mountain hutt (refuge) at 2438m. Tuckett was one of the early english climbers who ventured in the area and one of the first to attempt the ascent of the Barre Des Ecrins which stands at 4102m. In the end, he did not make it to the Barre (conquered by another english man, Whymper) nor to the Dome at 4015m (Boileau) but ascended another peak nearby that now bears his name and stands at 3568m. In his attempt he got stuck in a storm and took refuge in a nearby cave now called the "Hotel Tuckett". The CAF (Alpine Club) later built a hutt next to the cave and named it after him. The hutt is no longer used and serves as a small museum. It was nice to link a bit of history to the hike. The Tuckett hut is on a flat section with a couple of small shallow lakes nearby just below the first actual usable (ignoring the Refuge Cezanne which is at the pre de madame Carl) hut called Refuge Du Glacier Blanc which stands on a rocky outcrop at 2542m.

The Refuge du Glacier Blanc is where most people stop their hike. It is a great spot to have a lunch and get in the views of the glacier. Some people actually stop below the Tuckett hutt as there are some sections with cables in the rock to go through after the passerelle, nothing too difficult but a bit daunting for those not used to it.

I pressed on and reached the Refuge du Glacier Blanc where I soaked in the views. Above that point, a sign warns people that they are entering a high mountain environment (ie turn around if you have no experience or equipment). I moved on, kept going through some annoying slippery eroded rocky sections before reaching the edge of the glacier itself at around 2850m (you hike on the left hand-side of the glacier when looking downhill). On the way I could see some people practicing their ice skills with an instructor. Once you reach the glacier you have 2 options, hike onto the glacier (assuming you have the proper equipment) or hike on the right hand-side above the glacier through some steep slopes and small cliffs. I had the equipment but nobody to rope myself to (I was to meet Jean-Yves at the next mountain hut), so I took the “safe” option above the glacier which is unfortunately a harder and longer route. A couple of rock faces on that trail are equipped with cables, but there are still some tricky spots and you have to be careful. In the end, all you have to do is follow the friendly red dots. The trail eventually leads you back down to a safer area of the glacier at around 2950m. At this stage I headed back onto the glacier and carefully followed the trail to the foot of the rocky outcrop on top of which the Refuge Des Ecrins, my final destination for the day, proudly stood at 3175m. The Barre Des Ecrins was already in full view, and what a glorious one it was! From the Glacier to the hut there are another 85m of vert to absorb, not so much in itself except that there are a lot of rock falls and the lower section is quite steep and not marked well.


A sea of ice, Pelvoux in the background.


Barre des Ecrins in the background. Still quite far away.

I finally made it to the refuge des Ecrins and the 3175m mark at around 3pm after having started the hike 7 hours ealier and 1300m lower. I really enjoyed the hike up, snapping quite a few pictures on the way and gazing all the time at the stunning views. I left my gear in the storage room, signed-up the roster and strolled around taking pictures. I then went for a quick nap and met up with Jean-Yves at 6.30pm over the dinner table for a huge plate of pasta and beef stroganoff! It was really Maiiiiiiiiiu! It was a pretty good dinner given that they were running out of supplies (the helicopter comes every 3 weeks and drop food+water+other supplies). The Hut was full (it has a capacity of about 120 people) given that it is the staging area for the Barre des Ecrins, the Dome des Ecrins as well as La Roche Faurio and the Barre Noire. Some peeps who had not booked had to bivouac outside! They had run out of bottled water but the hut draws some fresh water directly from one of the glaciers above, the only trick is that you have to fill your platypus or water container in the evening as the water freezes in the pipes very often in the morning even in the summer. The evening thunderstorm came along and precipitation came in the form of snow at around above what I would estimate 3500m. Not much, but just enough to whiten the cliffs as if somebody has just peppered them with a bit of ice sugar. My first snow flakes in I do not know how many months! After admiring the sun coming down I headed back to my room which I happened to share with another 51 persons (all of them snorers including the women lying next to me who on top of it all was a rapid fire machine gun). You never get much sleep in a mountain hut anyway especially at almost 3200m.

The next morning we got up at 3.30 am, gulped down a breakfast, got our gear and got going. In the gear room we bumped into the first people that were getting out of the hut to hike the Barre Noire. I was not too sure about going down that steep face below the hut still half asleep at 4am with a headlamp. It was actually beautiful to see these lights darting around the mountain in the middle of the night like fireflies. The first people were already on the glacier and their headlamps were giving away in some spots the translucent light blue colors of the glacier. It was really a magical sight. We got down to the glacier without any problems, put our superfluous gear in some waterproof bags to be picked-up on the way back (no need to carry unnecessary stuff to the top), put on our ice crampons, roped ourselves together and started the approach to the bottom of the steeper section. The approach takes about 1 hour and you have to go over numerous crevasses. Some of the crevasses have snow bridges but some do not and you basically end-up jumping across them at 4am am with your headlamp as your only source of light. Given that it was the end of July, the glacier was in pretty bad shape (not filled-in) with many wide-open sections. As we reached the start of the steeper climb at around 3320m below the “Bonne Pierre” section we saw the guys we had bumped into in the gear room head for the Barre Noire. Pretty ballsy I thought. The Barre Noire is a daunting looking couloir filled with blue ice. It is a basically a double-axe, toes only climb for the whole length and you have to go past a huge nasty crevasse at the bottom of the couloir… We were going up the “easier” route. The first section of our route is steep and you have to rush though as there are some huge overhanging seracs that have the nasty tendency to collapse on people on a regular basis. The rest of the climb is flatter, but you have a bunch of crevasses to go past. I was puffing and huffing on the way up, and it is always hard to have your own rhythm as there is a single track to the summit and some of the faster cordees catch-up with you on the way up forcing you to step aside to let them go past. The hardest part was above 3800m just before reaching the rimaye, the thinner air made it a little bit more difficult.

As we reached the rimaye just below the Dome des Ecrins after having dodged the constant flow of rocks triggered by the peeps already climbing the Barre des Ecrins (the track to the Dome snakes right below the Barre at the end), we took a break and looked on towards the top of the couloir of the Barre Noire as the first climbers were reaching the top of it. But as we looked on, something did not look right, and sure enough the peeps at the top of the couloir started waving frantically towards us, blowing their rescue whistles and started popping flares. Of the 3 cordees, only 2 had reached the top of the couloir. The 3rd cordees had been hit by a large rock fall and had either slid into the crevasse at the bottom or were hanging injured in the middle of the couloir unable to move (we could not see the gut of the couloir from our vantage point). One of the mountain guides in the group near the top that was with us was already on his radio liaising with the mountain rescue team. The helicopter from the PGHM was here 10 minutes later and already starting the rescue. The helicopter was going back and forth between the couloir and the flat section of the glacier and it looked like as if it was plucking people one by one, it took about 30 minutes in all before it left with the injured. I assume that the injuries were not fatal since nothing was mentioned in the local news the following days.


Barre Noire is the steep couloir on the left side of the picture. Big chunk of ice broke to the right of the couloir where exposed rock can be seen.

Time was going by, and from the Breche Lory at around 3970m we made the final ascent to the Dome des Ecrins at 4015m! On the way there we had to go through a steep rock face with our ice crampons on! The views were stunning all around. It was a nice feeling of achievement after having climbed 1015m of rather difficult vert in the morning for a combined gain of 2140m in altitude since the day before. The ascent had been a bit rushed in order to avoid serac falls and enjoy better snow conditions and I had no time to snap some pics on the way up. So I snapped a few pics from the Dome, we then headed back down. We put in an ice screw and rappelled down the Rimaye. Some people were actually rapelling down using an ice mushroom they had dug in the ice with their ice axe. The snow was changing quickly and becoming mushy quickly making the snow bridges (when there were some) less stable, not to mention the seracs that were now starting to heat-up and release. We made it down the “Pyramid”, walked away from the nearest debris field’s danger zone and took a quick snack looking at the ascent we had just done. We then started to head down the flatter section of the glacier to head home. After about 30 minutes, a chunky section of ice released from near the mid-section of the pyramid and filled the glacial valley with a thunderous sound. Nobody was in its path thankfully, but people still climbing down the pyramid froze for a while wondering what was going to happen next. I then saw the little black dots on the way down resuming their climb down in a hastened pace. Earlier that morning we had heard coming from the Barre Noire what sounded like a shotgun being fired as the ice broke.


Climbers taking a break just before summiting the Dome.



Pic taken from the summit of the Dome at 4015m with the 4102m Barre des Ecrins in the background.


Rappeling down the Rimaye just below the Dome.


People making their way down. Can't hang around there too long.


Jean-Yves taking a break after descending the main Pyramid.

On the way down, we stopped at the Refuge du Glacier Blanc for a hearty meal and I then made it back down to the car exhausted after about 11 hours of hiking / climbing! I will have great memories of the climb. End of July was a bit late for the ascent and the whole thing with rocks/ice falls and crevasses felt a bit like a lottery, but what a stunningly beautiful mountain. Thoroughly enjoyed it!

I will add more links and pics to that post later.

For more pics you can go to my SJ page:
http://www.snowjapan.com/e/insider/photo.php?userid=SerreChe

Also you can find below a couple of nice topos of the area with some nice pics from this website:
Dome des Ecrins from Refuge des Ecrins:
http://www.montagne-virtuel.com/05/alpinisme/domeecrins/sortie.php
Barre des Ecrins via Barre Noire
http://www.montagne-virtuel.com/05/alpinisme/barrenoire/sortie.php

Cool trip
I hope you get up some more mountains while you are overseas

My gf + mum + 65 year old friend are off hiking in Chamonix. Beanie the bear shagger is roaming the awesome Canadian pines and peaks and you are doing exactly what I like doing in exactly the kind of environment I love. I am happy for all of you bastards.

I really could relate to your write up and enjoyed reading it. Although it is amazing how crowded it gets. One of the relative strong points of the Canadian environment would be the emptiness. But sometimes having other groups of alpinists around adds to the adventure/experience/drama. You meet different people and see what, when and how they are going about doing their objective. So some crowd can bring benefit. But sleeping with them brings no benefit. I too have spent the night is a full hut, 100+ people and trying to sleep is literally a bad dream come true.



Check out the slide path below the seracs! It doesn't look particularly steep, but on a firm spring corn bed of snow, ice rubble would bowl right down that funnel. It certainly looks like it does.

Given that there were only two of you on the glacier rope, did you tie overhand bights in the rope every 50cm or so to help hold a fall? I would actually like to discuss the pros and cons of that two-man rope safety measure, if you or any one else has an opinion. I am in two minds.

Damn I wish I could get out there.

I have never heard of anything like that spud
Any knots in a rope are bad. Why not use a prussik for your exit? Seems to be standard practice for crevesse rescue no?

All I know is that with only 2 people on a rope chances are that you will be climbing out of a crevesse on your own as your partner will have enough trouble just staying on top

nice trip id like to go just for the food after the climb.

When we roped cb out of his creek it took 2 of us and a tree to get him up and out. I hate ropes really if you are using them the risks just get higher.

It isn't so common, but it is certainly mentioned quite often around the place. The knots are overhand knots on a bight. The idea is that if you are a two man rope, the knots bite into the lip of the crevasse very quickly and easily. this is in fact very true. The solo dude above the glacier can hold a fall very easily and much more easily wriggle from an arrest position to get a good anchor in place. Using some slings and biners the fallen climber can then use the bights to climb out in a similar fashion to prussiking out. So it aid fall arrest and also an easy climb out.

The downside is that if the fallen climber is knocked out or badly injured then they cant climb out and the surface guy has to rig up a pulley. But you obviously cant haul the injured climber on a knotted rope that is designed to grip the crevasse lip. This means you need an extra haul rope as unless you are lugging a 50m rope, there wont be enough spare loops on each climber. I have a 30m rando rope. I tie in with 10m spare and my partner ties in 10m ahead of me and she has 10m spare. So if one of use goes down we each have 10m of spare loops (which is barely enough). But if I put knots in the 10m between us then I use up enough rope so that neither of us have enough left over for a haul rope. Make sense?

It seems that if you knot the rope then you need a 50m rope. But that is total over kill for glacier walking glacier.

I favour a knotted rope to help her easily areest my fall. But if I am injured then there is no way that knotted rope can be used to haul me out.

Spud mate, I remember when you had something like 3 months off that you spent shredding the BC in Europe while all of us were working. Cannot be this way forever .

Toque, I am already back in Japan sitting behind a desk and a computer...

FT, as a matter of fact, one thing that really surprised me in those mountain huts was that the food was fantastic! The Refuge du Glacier Blanc is definitly worth the climb to have a meal up there especially with the views. When you're tired and hungry the food tastes even better.

Now, with regards to the roping process.

2 peeps roped together is not the perfect solution, the more the better up to a certain point. At least with 2 people, the hope is that one can stay on top, stop the fall and let the other guys climb out on his own or get some people to help to get him out if he is injured as Toque said. We did not tie some overhand bights at regular intervals but it is an interesting theory. It is true that the rope does bite into the lip and those bights might help. I must say that I have not seen it used, maybe people prefer to keep it all simple.

I think FT did very well to get cb out his creek with only 2 peeps, it is not easy. The theory is a lot easy than the execution.

I have a story from Jean-Yves who has been guiding people for almost 40 years. He was guiding a group of people (5 or 6) at the col des Ruillans (Near la Grave/La Meije) on a glacier discovery walk tour. He was leading the rope. At one stage he saw a tiny hole in the snow. Instinctively he stepped over it but the woman behind was not paying attention and stepped right on top of it. The hole opened-up and she fell into a large crevasse. JY latched on, arrested her fall, the rest of people on the other side of the rope managed to do the same. The only problem was the configuration of the crevasse. It was not a vertical strata, it was as if it was a huge air bubble that had been covered with snow and the woman had fallen in the middle of it and was unable to even to a pendulum to any of the side walls which were too far. They tried to get her out for a while but were unsuccessful and she was starting to get hypothermic and go into shock. So the guide eventually had to call for the mountain rescue helicopter on his radio to get her out of there. She eventually had to unclip from the safety rope and back onto the helicopter cable to be hauled out of the crevasse. So you never know the kind of crevasse configuration or snow quality you gonna come across.

Another interesting side note:

La Barre des Ecrins was France's highest peak until 1870!

Which was when you stole Monte Bianco from the Italians

Two man roping: I have seen people do it, and had it recommended to me by guides, but not yet done it myself as except for a few tours last season I keep my GF clear of glacier walking. But next season is going to be a whole new ball game and I want to work out my rope tactic. The truth is she couldn’t set up a Z pulley in the first place, except in an ideal situations. And a single Z only gives 4:1 haul ratio and she wouldn’t be strong enough to pull my injured body up, let alone get me over the lip. So the bottom line for a two person team such as her and I is that hauling out is secondary to arresting the fall. With knots, she can easily arrest and secure to an anchor and if I am injured and unable to climb out, she calls the helicopter or some other people nearby. Stopping the situation getting any worse is primary, and knots help a ‘weak’ two person team do that.

A guide told me a similar story to SerreChe’s. He was standing with his group on a pretty flat part of a commonly crossed glacier. They had just ridden down to a gathering point and still had boards strapped on. One moment there were 5 in the group, the next moment there was 4. One guy just vanished as the snow broke away below him. His board had jammed between the crevasse walls and he was stuck 30m down the hole, upside down with a bleeding head. Because they were riding, he wasn’t roped up. And they couldn’t get the rope to him and he clip it on. A heli was called and a rescue guy lowered down on a cable. If you see were this happened, how close it is to a resort and how smooth and filled-in flat the glacier appears to be, it makes you respect the things. If anyone here went to Chamonix and went touring then they would very likely cross this area and understandably feel relatively safe.

I fo

You are switched on as always Spud.
And then later we got Val Stretta + a few other chunks...

Very nice place Val Stretta, and starting point to Mont Thabor. Great fishing as well. Gracie!

sounded like a good trip.
nice write up and amazing pics!

Thanks dizzy.

The nice thing about that area, is that except for nearby la Meije/ la Grave it is not that well known as there is only one peak above 4000m (although quite a few peaks are just below 4000m: Pelvoux, Aile Froide, La Meije...etc). So, although it can be busy, it is not as busy as the Mont Blanc area especially as the access is not that easy either.

I saw your nice pics from Mount Fuji. Very Nice!
How was the hike?
How were the temps? How crowded?
Tell us more.

That very spot takes people from time to time unfortunately:

http://pistehors.com/comments/A107_0_1_0_C/

one day im going to have to earn enough money to go back to europe and hire a guide. untill them ill play around here and maybe play in canada with toque and dannyboy

Jap, Cad... I don't think you have any shortage of fun stuff to play in. But if you do come over then let me know. You don't need a guide for lost for great routes, we would have a barrel of fun.

Seracs: more than any other thing I hear this mentioned as the cause of death in glaciated parts of the Alps. In many different areas I have had someone point across the way and state that a friend died there in a serac fall. In each case the route was easier and shorter but more exposed to a serac. Half way down Mont Blanc we encountered a moderately recent serac fall. Besides the rubble that had spilled down from the ice cliff onto the skiable snow, there was a VW Beetle sized hunk of ice that had skidded directly across our path covering about 50m. The long gouged out slide path looked like a meteor had hit the snow, it was easily 4 feet deep. I expected a 3 year old Superman to crawl out of the ice space ship.

In the middle of this shot you can see some distant serac fall rubble that we had to ride across. It runs down hill from the very huge shadowed ice cliff and then bends skiers left. Quite a nasty spot.

FT, as Spud said Japan and Canada have some fantastic places. You are already doing a great job of exploring Japan and I am sure you have your own secret spots back home for which you do not need a guide.

That being said, a guided group to the Domes des Ecrins for example is 125 euros per person which is not that bad if you do it once a year and if you put in in the perspective of how much money we spend on gear every year. Obviously, when you go with a group you'd better know the people or get along with everybody or it is a nightmare. The price for a private guide to the same spot is not cheap at 370 euros, but obviously you go at your own rythm and do not run the risk of warfare with other group members.

I think that if you work your ass off all year to make a living and are lucky enough to be able to afford it then 370 euros once a year is not bad. Obviously, if you have to add transportation, lodging, food, etc... then yes you are right, it is a different ball game.

Spud, that's a very nice picture. Glaciated environments are always stunning looking but they are all so dangerous, it is basically like playing the lottery hoping you do not draw the wrong (serac fall) number. When boarding/skiing off-piste, with the little one back home now, I will be looking to safer spots going forward. Japan has so much variety to offer anyway.

Wow that photo is nice.
How big would a little man be on that.

Well this small guy (me) looked and felt pretty small. The below picture is a close up of us riding down past the relatively minor looking ice cliffs in the very upper left hand corner of the above photo. The cliffs are not so small up close.



SerreChe - did you go fly fishing when you were home?? Wanna start a Grenoble based fund???? How about a yakitori joint?