Overview

The Écrins region and National Park lies to the south-east of Grenoble in the département of Hautes-Alpes. Two main valleys cut into the massif. The Vénéon, in which la Bérade is the main centre and road-head, runs in from the west and is accessed from the Bourg d’Oisans – la Grave road (N91). The other, which was my base, is the valley of the Gyronde, or Vallouise, which runs in from the south-east and is accessed from the Briançon – Gap road (N94) at l’Argentière-la-Bessée. Its main centres are Vallouise and Ailefroide, with the road-head about 5km beyond Ailefroide at Pré de Madame Carle. Puy St Vincent is a developing ski resort on the south-western side of the valley above Vallouise.

Getting there

By air to Grenoble, then by train, bus or car. There is a rail station at l’Argentière — the journey time from Grenoble is three and a half to four hours, usually with a change. Check for times etc. on the SNCF French rail website. Buses run from Grenoble via Bourg d’Oisans to Briançon, and from Briançon down the N94 towards Gap. Local services operate up the two valleys mentioned above.

Grenoble airport is about 40km north-west of the city centre.

I hired a car from Grenoble airport (Hertz, with BMC discount) and drove via Bourg and the Col de Lautaret to Briançon. On a summer weekend during normal daytime hours, allow three hours for this journey. To get into the Gyronde valley for les Vigneaux, Vallouise and Ailefroide, take the N94 Gap road south from Briançon, then at Prelles, about 5km from Briançon, take the minor road signposted to les Vigneaux. This is quicker than continuing to l’Argentière, and brings you past les Vigneaux to join the main valley road just below the village.

An alternative way to reach Grenoble is by overnight train from Paris with onward connection for l’Argentière if your destination is the Vallouise valley.

The eastern sector of the Écrins can be reached just as easily — if not more so — from Torino (Turin). I have no direct knowledge of this option.

In 2005 there was virtually no mobile phone coverage anywhere in the area once you get away from the villages and the roads, even on the summits.

The Villages

les Vigneaux

A narrow high street leads to the church. As far as I could see there are no services in the village centre, although there is a small store on the main valley road below the village. Guide Murray Hamilton has his home here, and the gîte "les Carlines" (see below) is on the edge of the village on the GR50 footpath.

Vallouise

Vallouise has shops, hotels, hostels (gîtes), cafés, restaurants and a bureau des guides. Traffic can get congested: the village centre is over a bridge from the main road up the valley, and the narrow streets are not car-friendly. Bar-restaurant Alphand has a pleasant terrace and brews its own beer: the lager (blonde) is good, the white beer (blanche) is a bit weak and sweet, and I can’t report on the "pale ale" (ambrée) or the stout (brune) — I was only there for lunch.

Ailefroide

Ailefroide consists mostly of a vast campsite and parked cars. There are a few shops and a bureau des guides, along with a hotel or two.

For the curious, someone called Eric Lon advertises his services based at the camp site with, apparently, occasional sessions in the Glacier Blanc and Écrins refuges. He has one of the least probable web addresses — http://www.massage-et-trekking-sans-frontiere.com. [Update, March 2010: alas, the link is no longer active.]

Pré de Madame Carle

A car park. There’s also a visitor centre/gîte d’étape/café/restaurant. That’s it.

Great Mysteries of the World #473

Who was Madame Carle?

According to the Alpes-Guide website, although no-one today knows the real origin of this place-name, tradition has it that Mme Carle was the daughter-in-law of the President of the Grenoble parliament, Geoffroy Carle, who was the tutor of King Louis XIII’s daughter at the beginning of the 16th century. In 1510 Geoffroy bought the castle and estates of la Bâtie des Vigneaux. His son Antoine Carle died young, leaving a widow and 10 children. When the children came of age they divided up their father’s estate, assigning the parcel of land which now bears her name to their mother. However, this is just one of many tales about the name.

Where I stayed

Gîte d’étape "les Carlines"

Small, friendly gîte on the GR50 run by Coralie and Eric. Full information on their website. Hearty evening meals and good breakfasts.

Hôtel St Roch

Three-star hotel in the ski resort of Puy-St-Vincent Station 1400, which is on the south side of the Gyronde/Vallouise valley above and between les Vigneaux and Vallouise. I stayed here for one night before walking-in to the Refuge des Écrins. I was the only casual guest — there were 12 other residents, all of whom seemed to be staying for at least a week on a half-board basis.

I was given a large, comfortable room with a double and single bed and an en-suite bathroom. There is a pleasant terrace, currently spoiled by overlooking the site where a new ski tow is being built. An outdoor pool suffers the same disadvantage. I had an excellent evening meal (though note the restaurant does not start serving dinner until eight o’clock) and an excellent breakfast. Full information on their website.

Refuge du Sélé

The refuge

The refuge is a curious warehouse-like structure perched on a bit of levelled ground 50 metres or so above the valley floor. I tried and failed to find somewhere to take an attractive photo of it: this is the best I could do.

The Refuge du Sélé

There’s a wooden trough outside (see photo) fed from a black plastic pipe running from a small cistern somewhere above the hut, which in turn is fed by melt-water. In the full sunshine the black plastic absorbs the sun’s heat, making the water pleasantly warm for washing — both one’s body and one’s sweaty clothes.

Refuge de la Pilatte

The refuge

The Refuge de la Pilatte is a paradox. It has running water and hot showers. It has been extended and refurbished at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds. But since before the refurbishment it has been falling down.

The cause is thought to be the fall in the level of the glacier. The refuge stands on a shelf of rock some 50 metres above the ice. As the ice has disappeared, more of the supporting rock has been exposed to melting of the permafrost and as a result the whole mass of rock has started to fall away. The fracture line in the rock base has been covered over, but there is a substantial crack running right through the building.

On the outside the stone blocks have shifted, and a window frame has slipped to a strange angle. The external crack has been filled, partly with cement and partly with expanding foam filler. Neither will hold the structure together, but both at least keep out the draughts. Surveyors’ tell-tales straddle the worst cracks.

Inside, the half of the floor nearest the glacier is perhaps four centimetres lower than the other half. The crack carries on up across the walls and right through the structure. More tell-tales monitor any movement.

It’s the sort of thing nobody mentions, but everybody has at the back of their minds. The odds of the building collapsing onto the glacier tonight, or tomorrow night, are remote, but one day it will. And it might just be tonight.

Having said that, the hut is comfortable and friendly, and again the food was good. There was heating on for a while later in the afternoon and drying lines over the radiators.

The approach

The approach from the Glacier de la Pilatte is worth a mention, as it is possibly the least friendly of all the hut approaches I’ve done. Not that it’s any real problem, just a bit unexpected. Most huts are perched above their valley floors or glaciers up an obvious and well-trodden path (or iron ladder, like the Konkordia). Here, unless I missed it, there’s no obvious indication of the point where you leave the glacier and start up the rocks to the hut. A kind of open chimney or groove with plenty of loose stones and grit leads up at an angle of about 40 degrees for 15 or 20 metres, continuing as a scramble up rocks and slabs with, I seem to remember, a couple of fixed cables. Maybe 30 metres higher you find yourself on a broad ledge, with a clear level path suitable for grannies and infants leading you easily to the refuge.

Descending to the glacier in the early morning dark it would be easy to dislodge stones onto people below — or to be the people below. So wear a helmet!

Refuge du Glacier Blanc

The refuge

After the Gouter Hut, the Refuge du Glacier Blanc and the Refuge des Écrins vie for position as the second and third busiest huts in France, as measured by overnight stays. Tourists need no special equipment to reach the Glacier Blanc refuge at this time of year: any lying snow is long gone, and the path, although stony and a little steep in one or two places, can be confidently tackled in trainers. Which means of course that it is also tackled in town shoes, sandals and flip-flops. The walk takes about two hours from the car park at Pré de Mme Carle.

The upshot is that on a fine day the refuge is busy at lunch times with the usual mix of day-trippers and climbers jostling for space at the tables on the terrace (no shade). I was again impressed by the quality of the salads, offered in four varieties — green, mixed, montagnard and du refuge.

We used the refuge twice, but did not stay overnight. Murray told me he strongly preferred the Glacier Blanc refuge to the Écrins, and would stay there and walk up if he had the choice. The staff were certainly welcoming and the service was friendly.

Glacier Blanc, with Refuge on the right

Refuge des Écrins

The refuge

No hut is pleasant when it is full, and the Écrins refuge was no exception. With so many people milling about I didn’t get any real impression of the place. I’d heard that the guardian and his assistants didn’t care much about customer service (after all, they have a captive market), and there was nothing to contradict this view.

The hut has a washroom in the basement with running glacier meltwater. Dormitory A is right next to the washroom and toilets. I had the rare privilege of being allocated a space in the guides’ room, which turned out to be just like all the other dormitories in mountain huts but quieter and with more ropes.

Introduction

This was going to be an important trip for me. I hadn’t been climbing in the Alps for 3 years, and the highest mountain I’d climbed since then was the Pic de Madamète in the Pyrenees, only 2657 metres high. The last time I’d been over 3500m was in 2002, and my last 4000m summit was the Mönch in 2001. I was pleased with what I’d been able to do in the Alps so far, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was getting older and slowing down. I had reached my sixtieth birthday earlier in the year, and my birthday present to myself was this week’s one-to-one private guiding in the Écrins.

I had kept up a regular training programme and was as fit as I was could realistically be, but I knew that physiology was against me. Childhood asthma had left me with a rather small lung capacity, and despite regular cardio-vascular exercise my maximum heart rate was hovering just below 160, only about average for someone of my age. So although I could maintain a steady work rate under normal conditions, I didn’t have much in reserve and an increase in effort soon brought me to the limit. I was keen to see how I would cope with the exertions of mountaineering at 4000 metres. If all went well I could keep on with my ambitions to climb more mountains. If not, I’d have to lower my sights, metaphorically and literally.

This is the story of the week.

Murray

The idea of going to the Écrins had first occurred to me in the winter of 2003/04. I’d written to Alan Kimber (guiding at that time as West Coast Mountain Guides) to ask him for some contacts, and Murray had e-mailed me a few weeks later. We’d exchanged some correspondence, but my tentative plan for a trip in 2004 had had to be shelved. We’d re-established contact late in 2004 and this venture was the result.

All I knew about Murray Hamilton was from his website, a brief phone conversation, a Google search which confirmed that he was a climber of some reputation, and that he was Scottish, now living in les Vigneaux in the Vallouise valley in the Écrins. We were going to be spending six days together in the mountains, so I hoped we would get on.

We met by the side of the road outside les Vigneaux. He was perhaps a little under 1m80 in height, lean, with the fair Viking complexion of some Scots and the same boyish looks for which David Attenborough was noted. I guessed he was in his early forties. After brief introductions I followed his car to the gîte where he had arranged for me to stay that night. I’d wondered whether we might get together that evening to work out a plan for the week, but once at the gîte — where Murray was clearly a familiar visitor — he proposed that he would come back the next morning straight after breakfast, and I agreed.

Gîte Life

It was the first time I’d stayed in a French gîte. Les Carlines was run by Eric and Coralie: how typical it was I can’t say, but I made a faux pas by not taking my shoes off in the porch. My room had two bunk beds. Eric warned me I might be sharing so I tried to keep my baggage tidy, but in the event no-one else showed up. Again I don’t know if this is typical, but sheets and towels were not automatically provided — Eric asked if I had a sheet sleeping bag and gave me sheets when I said I hadn’t, and I had to ask for a towel, which was provided promptly and with no fuss.

Apart from me there were only two couples staying that night. We gathered in the common room just before eight o’clock, which was the time we’d been told dinner would be ready, and exchanged polite conversation over pre-dinner drinks. Dinner was late — Eric didn’t get it to the table until nearly nine.

I stayed at les Carlines again on Friday and Saturday nights at the end of the week. Friday was busy with a large group of Italian walkers whose leader was either talking loudly on his mobile phone, or showing his clients the treats in store for them with a PowerPoint presentation on his laptop. The group kept themselves separate, and I spent the evening talking to a couple from Brittany who were on a two week walking holiday. Eric had got his act together and dinner was served at eight on both nights.

The rooms at les Carlines were all en-suite (though obviously you shared with whoever else shared your room), the evening meals were hearty, and there was cereal and orange juice for breakfast as well as the usual bread and jam. The 2005 price for dinner, bed and breakfast was €31.60 per person — about £22.

First Impressions

Murray’s proposed plan on the Sunday morning was similar to the ideas I’d come up with from the map and the guidebook. I had told him I was very keen to climb the main 4000m peak in the region, the Barre des Écrins, but that I wasn’t acclimatised to altitude and would need a few days training before I would feel ready to tackle it. Murray’s suggestion was to walk in to the Sélé refuge that day; climb Pointe des Boeufs Rouges on Monday and continue to the Pilatte refuge; climb Mont Gioberney on Tuesday, returning to the Pilatte; return on Wednesday across the Col du Sélé; with the option to climb Pointe du Sélé, descending to the valley that night; walk in to the Écrins refuge on Thursday; and on Friday climb the Barre and return all the way back to the valley. Although I wasn’t sure about Murray’s classification of some of these days as "easy" I agreed it was as good a plan as we could come up with at the time. It also gave us options for later in the week if for some reason the Barre was not possible.

Later that morning Murray parked his car outside Ailefroide, we put on our rucksacks and set off for the Sélé refuge on a clear path at an easy gradient. It was the first chance we’d had to talk and start to get to know each other. I was interested to know more about him, and I imagine the same was true of him about me. I told Murray about my family and my mountaineering experience; he told me about his family and some of his other clients, not forgetting to mention a group of regulars who were all older than me. I was interested to ask him how he built time off into his guiding commitments, and whether he found any time to climb for pleasure rather than work. He told me about long journeys by car from one part of the Alps to another between leaving one client at the end of a day and starting with a new client the next. He said that he hadn’t climbed the Barre des Écrins for several years, but assuming we did it later in the week he would be climbing it three times in the next month. In his position I would have been summing up my new client, and I tried to make sure I walked with an air of confidence and competence.

All was going well as we carried on towards the refuge, although it was getting hot as mid-day approached. There was no shade on the path, but we had refilled our water bottles at a spring which Murray had told me about as we were getting ourselves ready at the car park. (This was part of Murray’s weight-saving tactics — with water available on the route, we could manage with only carrying a half-litre of water each to start with instead of a litre, saving half a kilogram.) But the first test of how I would handle harder terrain wasn’t far off. The path headed directly towards what seemed like a corrie headwall. It was in fact the headwall of the lower valley: above the wall the valley continued as a hanging valley, with the Glacier du Sélé higher up but still out of sight. The wall was about 300 metres high. From below it looked not far off vertical.

At the foot of the cliff the path turned abruptly and led diagonally steeply upwards then zig-zagged up the face of the cliff. Rocks, slabs and shallow gullies replaced the stones and grit of the path up to now, and there were fixed cables in place. Instantly my pace dropped and my breathing quickened. My rucksack suddenly felt heavy and I became less footsure. Murray — quite a way ahead after only a few minutes — looked back and slowed down. "All right, Tony?" he called. It was to become our refrain for the week.

In retrospect, I did OK on that first thousand feet of steep ground. I was much slower than I would have expected, even given the weight I was carrying, but it was pretty hot by now, we were in the full sun of mid-day, and were approaching 2500 metres altitude. Even at this relatively modest height there is only 75% of the oxygen there is at sea level, and I hadn’t been much higher than this for three years. I needed time to make more red blood corpuscles. Anyway, it gave Murray the chance to get used to my laboured breathing!

Progress

The next two days went quite well. From the Refuge du Sélé to the summit of Pointe des Boeufs Rouges was a straightforward glacier walk followed by an easy ridge scramble, and although breathing hard I felt confident enough and was able to keep up a reasonable pace. Route-finding on the descent of the Glacier du Pilatte gave us — or rather Murray — a few problems. Under "normal" conditions this would have been a simple glacier walk on snow and ice, but there was so little snow left that on one section we had to pick a route over and through ice-smoothed rocks covered in stones and débris. We made it without any real difficulty. Towards the end of the descent tiredness was setting in: now and again I lost my footing and stumbled on the uneven ice. Taking off the crampons helped (less weight on the feet), but I couldn’t help feeling self-conscious about my clumsiness.

Mont Gioberney the next day was one of Murray’s "easy" days. Our wake-up call came late: there was a thick mist and the air was warm and no-one was in a hurry to leave the hut. We decided to wait for daylight before setting off. Murray had described the route: we would take the NE ridge route rather than the voie normale. This meant going up a rocky path and a small snow field to get onto the ridge. The ridge itself was good rock and free of snow, the only difficulty being a 30 metre rock step near the top. Graded alpine III, this was about as difficult as I felt able to tackle, but Murray re-assured me he thought I’d manage it.

On the ridge we moved roped together, with Murray occasionally telling me to wait while he negotiated a more tricky section before I followed through with him ready to catch a slip. The exertion on the steeper parts had me panting for breath again.

I don’t think I realised it at the time, but one small section before the rock step showed the problem I was to have later in the week. It was a short notch, no more than three metres across, exposed on both sides. In width it varied from a boot-width to a knife-edge, but there were obvious places to put your feet and it would only be two or three steps across. If it had been in Scotland I would have stepped across almost without a second thought, but here my breathing was heavy, my eyes were watering making it hard to focus, and going slowly I lacked the momentum to move smoothly from one step to the next. The slower you go the harder it is to balance, and I was going slowly. Of course I made it across, but in a highly undignified fashion. I was annoyed with myself, and a little embarrassed: this wasn’t how I wanted to be in the mountains.

The rock step itself came soon enough. I had explained to Murray that I had no pretensions to being a rock-climber; that all my climbing had been done in heavy boots; that British V Diff was probably the hardest I’d climbed, but that I knew the basics of ropework and belaying. "You can belay me," said Murray as he took a couple of turns of rope round a convenient spike of rock and slipped an Italian hitch into the carabinier on my harness. "Give me plenty of slack." And he swarmed quickly up and out of sight. A moment or two later a hard tug on the rope and a faint shout signalled it was my turn.

The short climb was much as I had expected. The first few moves were OK, then I got stuck for a bit, then I cheated by standing on an in-situ piton, then I got really stuck, couldn’t find a next move, and only stopped myself falling off by grabbing the next bit of gear Murray had put in for protection. I unclipped the rope from the first quick-draw and forgot (until Murray’s shout) to unclip the quick-draw from the fixed piton. So yes, about as inept as I expected. But somehow I struggled and panted and hauled myself up to Murray. I was gasping so much I couldn’t speak. "Well done," he said. "Don’t push yourself so hard." I didn’t try to explain that if I’d gone slow enough not to be out of breath it would have taken me half an hour.

The summit was only a few minutes further, and was a tremendous viewpoint. Although Mont Gioberney at 3352m is one of the lesser peaks in strict height terms, its central location gives it a splendid 360 degree panorama. There were several other people on the summit and more arriving, all by the normal route. We had been the only ones on the NE ridge. We stayed on the summit for about 20 minutes enjoying the views and the sunshine.

Second Thoughts

Although things had gone fairly well so far and Murray and I were getting on fine, by the end of the next day I was close to calling off any attempt on the Barre. We had made our way back up the Glacier du Pilatte, which is steeper than the Glacier du Sélé, and once more I had found the steepest part approaching the col hard going. Murray, conscious I’m sure of how I was doing, switched from cramponning sideways up the slope to zig-zagging, even cutting steps to make it easier for me.

At the top of the snow there was a final 75 metres of rock to reach the col, which Murray made sure we did with crampons. "You seem to be OK on rock with the crampons," he commented. As we sat at the col having a morning snack it dawned on me that I’d been taken through an informal assessment process over the past three days: glacier travel, moving together on rock, an easy climb, rock climbing in crampons, general fitness and capability — all had been tested.

My main concern about the day, though, was the amount of descent — over 1750 metres from the col to the car park. My quad muscles were stiff and aching after the last two days’ downhill sections, and I wasn’t looking forward to the next part of the day. The more tired my legs became the less control I had and the chances of a slip grew. Added to which my left ankle was hurting as we headed across the easy glacier slope below the col: the ground sloped away to our left, and this ankle was taking the strain. Sure enough, we hadn’t gone far before I didn’t lift my foot high enough, caught my front crampon points in the snow, and went sprawling headlong. And this was on easy ground. I remember thinking as I fell that it would be safer just to take the fall rather than to try to keep my balance and risk spraining a knee or an ankle. An added humiliation was that we weren’t alone. Another guide and his client, a young man who’d just finished his Baccalauréat and wanted to go to medical school, were walking alongside us, Murray ahead chatting to the guide and me and the young man behind doing the same.

Luckily there were no further mishaps that day. We passed below the Sélé refuge, and I picked my way slowly and carefully down the valley headwall to the easy gradient of the path below. Murray ranged ahead, waiting for me a few times but eventually heading off for the car. My walk became a slow trudge: my legs were tired and aching and I could feel a blister developing. The only positive was that my ankle seemed to be all right.

I started thinking about the next two days, going over what Murray had told me about the climb of the Barre. I had real doubts about the wisdom of tackling it — my physical state, my enforced slow pace at an even higher altitude, my lack of rock-climbing experience for the summit ridge. I knew that I would be operating at my extreme limit, and it had become clear that in those conditions my control, balance, judgement and concentration all failed. I was asking too much of myself, and it would be too dangerous. These thoughts were still with me as I walked slowly into the car park and found Murray in fresh clothes and ready to go.

I told him some of my doubts on the drive down. Could he suggest a Plan B, I asked, one which didn’t involve the Barre at all, somewhere else in the region perhaps? There were other things we could do instead, he agreed, but he was sure we could do the Barre if I wanted to. We got to his house without resolving the problem, so we agreed I would phone him later with my decision. I headed off to a hotel for the night where I removed a square inch of blistered dead skin that was hanging off my big toe, dressed the raw area, and started the first of many stretching sessions to relieve the aches and stiffness in my legs.

Over the following hours and with the help of a couple of morale-boosting beers my thoughts clarified and some optimism returned. I knew I could get to the Refuge des Écrins tomorrow. I was confident I could get up the North Face of the Barre as far as the Brèche Lory, however slowly. If I couldn’t face climbing the ridge to the summit of the Barre (probably in crampons), or if it was too late, I could certainly manage the few extra metres on snow to the summit of the Dôme de Neige des Écrins, the subsidary summit which was just over the magic 4000 metres. Whatever happened, I could get as far as the Refuge du Glacier Blanc on the way down, and I could stay there the night if I couldn’t handle the whole descent back to Pré de Mme Carle. On that analysis it was worth having a go.

I rang Murray and explained my thinking. He was very positive, saying again he was sure I could do it and telling me again that the summit ridge was no harder than anything else we had done so far. He also said he’d never guided a client to the Dôme de Neige. I got the strong impression that he didn’t intend to make Friday his first time, but I figured that in the end it would be my call.

Going for it

It was Thursday morning. Murray had lent me an old rucksack, smaller and lighter than my MacPac, and now I had a good idea of the conditions and what to expect at the refuges I had ruthlessly discarded as much stuff as possible. I felt in much better spirits after a bath, a good meal, a good night’s rest, and a good breakfast. My stretching exercises had helped too — I could walk normally down the hotel stairs in the morning, whereas the previous evening I’d had to lurch down one step at a time — and the dressing had stayed on my blistered toe. I drove over to Murray’s place, and we headed up the valley in our two cars in case we parted company at the Refuge du Glacier Blanc.

Stage one was from the car park at Pré de Mme Carle to the Refuge du Glacier Blanc. This went well. The path was busy with climbers and tourists and the weather was once again warm and sunny. I was happy with my pace, reaching the refuge in an hour and three-quarters at 1145. We agreed to have a leisurely lunch break and leave about 2 o’clock to avoid the worst of the mid-day heat and sun.

The second stage to the Refuge des Écrins was fine too, though I realised I was a bit slower now we were going from 2500m to 3100m. But the route was easy enough with no challenging sections, and we made reasonable time. I took the last steeper section (about 120m ascent) from the glacier to the refuge at a comfortable if slow pace, and arrived not noticeably out of breath.

During the evening I thought I might have detected a little element of mountain guide one-upmanship. "What are you doing tomorrow?" is a common question among both guides and clients. At the Écrins refuge the answer is almost always either "the Barre" or "the Dôme", with the (easier) Dôme beating the Barre about 9 to 1. Did I notice just a slight acknowledgement when Murray declared our objective? On second thoughts it was probably just my imagination. I certainly didn’t think any of it rubbed off on me!

The Big Day

A 3 o’clock wake-up call, chaos in the gear room, a missing boot (someone must have knocked it off the shelf and kicked it into a corner), but despite it all we were among the first few away at 0340. I was trying not to let my anxiety come to the surface but I knew it was there. The first couple of kilometres up the glacier to the foot of the climb were easy enough, though, and we made good progress. In the dark I was concentrating on each step, and hardly saw the lights of other groups behind and in front of us. At the base of the North Face Murray looked around at recent avalanche débris. He pointed out the séracs hanging over the zig-zag route, and said we should move as quickly as we could until we were out of danger.

The height gain from the foot of the North Face to the point where the route levels off to traverse the upper slope to the Brèche Lory was about 550 metres. Looking back, I struggle to find the right words to describe how I felt on this ascent. "Misery" is the first that comes to mind, but I wasn’t miserable in the sense of feeling sorry for myself. I had chosen to do this, after all. It was more that my vision had shut out everything except the footprints in front of me and the rope snaking over them. My mind was blank — I wasn’t thinking about séracs, or good Alpine techniques, or even how it might be when we reached the Brèche and the decision point. I was cocooned in an invisible blanket where the only reality was my rapid and desperately laboured breathing, my pounding pulse, and the tracks in the snow one footstep ahead. I think we paused twice, maybe three times, for a minute or two. Murray was as solicitous as ever, checking frequently that I was all right to go on. It must have been a difficult judgement for him to balance the need to move as quickly as possible to get out of the danger zone with not wanting to have his client collapse on him. Although I always said I was OK, he must have had his doubts.

At some point on the climb the dawn broke. I do remember this fact breaking into my consciousness, and thinking it would be good to be able to stop and actually enjoy the spectacular scenery around us. But apart from that brief intrusion of the outside world I have no other pictures in my mind from outside my cocoon.

Reaching the traverse brought some relief. For about half a kilometre the track was almost level as it led west below the Barre’s summit ridge. We were not far short of 4000m altitude here, but I managed to quicken my pace and get my breathing more under control. To reach the Brèche itself meant crossing the rimaye (bergschrund), the gap between the moving ice of the North Face glacier and the static snow field of the ridge. I had read that the difficulty of this varied from year to year and season to season. On this day it meant climbing a short (10 metre) ice wall, recessed at an agle of about 70 degrees to form a shallow gully in the surrounding snow and ice.

By the time we arrived a few other parties had also reached the rimaye and were tackling it — or preparing to — with greater or lesser confidence and skill. Murray switched into professional guide mode, told me to wait for his signal, and ignoring everyone else ran up the wall and disappeared. A moment later a strong heave on the rope told me to get going. There were two others already on the wall, and I politely tried to give them room and time until another tug told me Murray was getting impatient and I forced my way past them. From the top a few steps brought us to the Brèche Lory, no more than a small notch where the rocky summit ridge of the Barre drops down to the snow field before rising slightly to the bump of the Dôme de Neige.

We paused here for a few minutes. I don’t remember us discussing whether or not to tackle the Barre, but I suppose we must have had a brief exchange along the lines of
Murray, nodding towards the ridge: "OK to go on?"
Me: "Yeah, OK, let’s go for it."

Murray stashed our walking poles and head torches and prepared to climb onto the ridge. A few minutes later I was back in my cocoon.

It wasn’t exactly the same cocoon, but only because the snow and ice was replaced by rock. Otherwise everything was as before — the complete exclusion of the outside world beyond the next step, the laboured breathing, the pounding pulse. Each breath was a gasp for air. I can’t remember anything about the views from the ridge. I do remember another guide/client pair with whom we got mixed up for a while before Murray decided the guide was making mistakes under pressure and eased off to let them stay ahead.

The ridge itself was not technically difficult though it was exposed in places. The rock was generally sound, and the climbing no more than a good scramble. My problem was the same as I’d experienced three days before on the ridge of Mont Gioberney — my physical state at this altitude and the slow pace it forced on me combined to take away my balance and my ability to move smoothly and confidently. I was inching along sections where I should have been confidently stepping, and grabbing the rock for support instead of walking upright.

There was hardly any snow on the ridge, and at some point we took off our crampons and left them to collect on the way back.

I’m pleased to say that I did manage to walk more or less normally the last few metres of the small summit up to the summit cross. I sat down, too exhausted to stand. It had taken four and a half hours from the refuge. The guide-book time is three and a half to four hours, and we had lost most of the difference on the ridge. I would like to say I was elated, but even before Murray mentioned it I was thinking we still had to get down safely and I wasn’t looking forward to going back down the ridge. Satisfied yes, elated no. But the views, now I had time to look around, were indeed wonderful. From Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn to the Gran Paradiso, all the major mountains of the Alps were in view above the morning cloud lying in the valleys. Murray worked round the panorama naming them.

We did get down without mishap, though I was no faster and no happier with myself than I had been on the way up. Murray urged me on, aware, I’m sure, that time was passing and the snow on the North Face was getting softer and wetter by the minute. Back at the Brèche my lack of focus almost lost me the helmet Murray had lent me, as I took it out of my rucksack and put it down on the snow upside-down. It slid away rapidly towards the south side of the tiny col, thankfully stopping short as it hit a few small rocks. It could just have easily have bounced over them and been lost a thousand metres below. Murray had warned me about just this problem days ago, and I mumbled an apology.

We needed to get down the North Face and onto the relative safety of the glacier as quickly as possible, and the snow by now was indeed soft and wet. It seemed ironic for me to be out of breath going downhill but I was, though nowhere near as badly as earlier. By now I was just physically exhausted. My legs were tired and becoming hard to control. I needed to rest and recover. Far from being a simple stroll downhill, the descent too became an ordeal. I had emerged from the cocoon, but only into what another writer has called "amnesiac time" — the condition where you have stopped thinking about anything and you are not aware of the passage of time.

As we got near the bottom of the face I told Murray I needed a recovery break, which we finally took when we had reached the glacier and moved well away from the danger of sérac fall: a luxurious ten minutes to drink, eat a biscuit or two, and indulge in the treat of a fun-size Mars Bar (first buried in the snow for a few minutes to harden it up). Now I could look back up at the Barre and begin to feel some satisfaction about reaching the top.

Last legs

And then we carried on down. On a long rope because we were still on the glacier, I kept up with Murray’s pace along the tracks in the snow, occasionally stumbling and slipping as my leg muscles protested and failed to control my feet. Past the Refuge des Écrins, across the snow line and onto the gritty ice and occasional slush of the lower part of the glacier. And the final indignity of a fall only a few hundred metres from the end of the glacier when a small ice ridge gave way under my foot and I sprawled head first a few feet down a hollow in the ice. Murray held me on the rope while I hauled myself upright.

We walked to the end of the tracks on the glacier and moved onto the path over the rocks which led down to the Refuge du Glacier Blanc. Murray remembered a spring a little further on where we stopped while I washed my arm. The damage looked worse than it was — a few scratches and cuts caused by the grit embedded in the glacier ice. Murray had a first-aid kit, but we agreed I needed antiseptic more than a dressing, and I was happy to let the bleeding stop naturally, which it did quickly in the bright sun. Murray went ahead to the Refuge in search of a choice of antiseptics and (on my instructions) to buy a celebratory beer. I followed more slowly, meeting him there to find he had acquired various treatments from the hut guardians, a can of lager for himself, and a large can of Pelforth Brune for me. It was the only beer they had in large cans, he told me.

There was only one more decision: did I stay overnight at the Glacier Blanc, or go all the way down? It was about half past twelve when I’d finished seeing to my arm. The normal time from the hut to the car park was an hour to an hour and a half. I figured that however tired I was and however slowly I had to go, it wouldn’t take me more than three hours. So I could have lunch and a rest, set off about three o’clock and be back at the car by six at the latest. So that was it.

Murray left a little before three, having agreed I would call at his place when I got back. I was actually asleep when he left, slumped at a table on the terrace with my head on my arms and my sun-hat down over my head. I left at quarter past and took my time, stopping as often as I wanted, resting my tired leg muscles and treading carefully. The last thing I wanted was another stumble. I reached the car park about a quarter to six.

Conclusion

I had plenty of time to myself on the way down, and I spent much of it thinking about my experiences during the week. My thoughts and the conclusions I came to then still stand a month later as I write this.

Ever since my first visit to the English Lake District as a child I had been fascinated by mountains and wanted to find ways to get to their tops. Some of my best days had been spent doing just that. I climbed mountains because I enjoyed it, and part of the enjoyment was doing something at which, I dared to think, I was or could be quite good. On this trip I felt I had done quite well, but not as well as I had hoped. Unless I could become much fitter and acclimatised to altitude my ability to climb in the Alps wasn’t going to improve, and realistically this wasn’t going to happen. Moreover, with every year older it was going to get harder.

This week had shown me my limits. For much of the time I had not felt comfortable nor in control: rather I had felt clumsy, awkward, and a bit incompetent. This was a change from my last Alpine trip three years ago. I must stress that none of this was down to Murray. If I’d wanted to stroll around the mountain paths in his company I’m sure he would have done just that. What we did each day may have been his suggestion but it was my choice, and it was me that wanted to climb the Barre. Murray just made it possible, and I’m grateful to him for that. He was solicitous, friendly and a good companion in the mountains, and although he was not the sort to make a big thing about it I felt he was looking after me all the time.

I turned things over in my mind but the conclusion was always the same. I wanted to enjoy the mountains, and had indeed enjoyed plenty of times during the week. But I wanted to look at the scenery, to take photographs, to feel self-assured, content and inspired. I could not do these things while I was gasping for breath and stumbling over simple rock steps because I was trying to do too much. Nor was it particularly safe. The way I was, I would have a serious accident sooner or later.

So from now on my sights will be lower. The Scottish mountains are still there, and I haven’t even done half the Munros yet. I can still go to the Alps and the Pyrenees and walk and climb in the mountains, but the benchmark will shift from four thousand metres to three thousand. There are challenging long-distance walks, and walks simply for pleasure like my week with Jonathan in the Alpes-Maritime earlier this year, and days out en famille or à deux. My tally of Alpine 4000-ers will stick at eight, but that’s enough.

All the pictures on these pages — and more — are shown full-size in the Slideshow.

The link to Souffle is to a long page entitled “À Bout de Souffle”. It doesn’t have any pictures. This week in the mountains was a significant one for me, and here I’ve tried to explain what it was really like — what I was thinking, how I was feeling, and so on. This is a deliberate attempt to break away from the customary rather terse, self-deprecating style of mountain writing where problems are glossed over and personal feelings are ignored. I’ve written it so I don’t forget what it was like, and because hopefully one or two other people who may come across it might find it echoes some experiences of their own.

Arrival day – 16 July

By Easyjet to Grenoble, then by hired car via Bourg d’Oisans and the Col de Lautaret to Briançon, where I contacted Murray Hamilton, my guide for the week, for directions. We arranged to meet at the edge of his village, Les Vigneaux, and he escorted me to the gîte where I was booked for the night.

Refuge du Sélé – 17 July

Murray came to the gîte so we could work out a plan for the week and sort out my kit. He seemed surprised when I mentioned my rucksack weighing over 12 kilos, so we went through it item by item with Murray ruthlessly throwing unnecessary bits and pieces back into my suitcase. I accepted his offer to lend me a lighter headtorch and helmet.

A little later I left the hired car at Murray’s house and we set off in his car up the valley to the car park outside Ailefroide. The path to the Refuge du Sélé heads up the valley of the Torrent de Celse Nière on the north side, at first through trees then in the open. The gradient is easy until shortly before the Refuge, when the river falls almost 300m from the upper hanging valley. The path climbs the same amount steeply (fixed cables in place), then levels out briefly before the track to the Refuge branches off to climb the last 50 metres or so to the hut.

Ailefroide car park: 1514m — Refuge du Sélé: 2511m

Looking back down the valley from the Refuge du Sélé

Pointe des Boeufs Rouges & Refuge de la Pilatte – 18 July

We went back down to the riverside path and along the almost flat valley. In the dark the profusion of cairns among the boulders is confusing: there is no single best path, and anyway the paths are frequently swept away by the river and landslides. After a while we reached and started to walk up the Glacier du Sélé, generally following its left (our right) side. The lower part had enough grit and stones to walk without crampons, but about 1hr into the journey we put them on.

We moved onto the rocks of the NNW ridge of Pointe des Boeufs Rouges a little to the left of the Col du Sélé, and followed the ridge on good rock. Only the last section to the summit is steep, but with no difficulties (PD).

Continuing the traverse down the SW ridge we reached the Col de la Condamine and made our way down the Glacier de la Pilatte, keeping right then left. Access to the Refuge de la Pilatte is by a steep scramble up a shallow gully and rocks (cables), followed by a level path leading to the refuge.

Glacier de la Pilatte from the Refuge

Refuge du Sélé: 2511m — Pointe des Boeufs Rouges: 3516m — Refuge de la Pilatte: 2577m — Altimeter log: ascent 1110m, descent 1045m.

Mont Gioberney – 19 July

At 3352m, Mont Gioberney is an easy objective from the Refuge de la Pilatte. The normal route is graded F: as an alternative we took the route via the NE ridge. This involves crossing the small snowfield below the ridge and joining the ridge at a notch below and to the SW of point 2934 (a prominent gendarme on the ridge). A moderate scramble and a short snow arète lead to a 30m rock step (graded III). The summit is a few minutes from the top of the step across easy ground (PD).

We came down by the normal route (the NE flank), which makes a wide loop down the Glacier du Gioberney to join the cairned track on rocky slopes leading NNE back to the refuge.

Summit of Mont Gioberney – Tony

Summit of Mont Gioberney – Murray

Refuge de la Pilatte: 2577m — Mont Gioberney: 3352m — Altimeter log: ascent 760m, descent 790m.

Col du Sélé – 20 July

We retraced much of our descent route from Pointe des Boeufs Rouges on the Glacier de la Pilatte, but heading left near the top to the Col du Sélé. The final 75m or so was rock. We reached the col shortly after sunrise, and after a short break started the long trek back down the Glacier du Sélé, past the Refuge du Sélé, and back to the car at Ailefroide.

Les Bans above the Clouds

Refuge de la Pilatte: 2577m — Col du Sélé: 3283m — Ailefroide car park: 1514m — Altimeter log: ascent 745m, descent 1745m.

Refuge des Écrins – 21 July

From the road end above Ailefroide at Pré de Madame Carle we headed up the well-graded zigzags of the path leading to the Glacier Blanc and the refuge of the same name. Having set out a little after ten o’clock and arriving around mid-day we decided to have lunch and wait a couple of hours before going on to the Refuge des Écrins.

Not far beyond the Refuge du Glacier Blanc there is a choice: walk on the glacier or on the morraine rocks above. We opted for the rocks. The path finally joins the glacier around the 3000m contour, and an easy walk brings you to the foot of the path up to the Refuge des Écrins.

Pré de Mme Carle: 1874m — Refuge du Glacier Blanc: 2542m — Refuge des Écrins: 3175m — Altimeter log: ascent 1280m, descent 20m

Barre des Écrins – 22 July

We were away from the crowded refuge by 0340. Down onto the glacier, and keeping to our right (the glacier’s left) we headed up easy gradients to below the Col des Écrins. From here the route moves onto the slopes of the north face of the Barre and steepens considerably. It zigzags up the face (on frozen snow for our visit) under hanging séracs — not a place to linger, especially as there had obviously been a recent fall. Eventually we reached the top of the snow slope at its left side below the summit ridge, from where a level traverse leads to the Brèche Lory. The bergschrund (rimaye) has to be negotiated to reach the Brèche, which on this occasion involved a 10m ice climb.

The ridge is good rock, at this time virtually clear of snow and ice. To get onto the ridge itself we climbed diagonally up from a point a few metres to the left of the Brèche. The route then follows the ridge either on the crest or on the rocks just below on the left. The gradient is moderate to the subsidiary top of Pic Lory, drops briefly, then rises more steeply to the summit of the Barre itself. There are no particular technical difficulties, though there is inevitably some exposure (PD).

Barre des Écrins – North Face

Summit of Barre des Écrins – Tony

Our descent was by the same route, with Murray saving time by lowering me off the Brèche Lory rather than setting up an abseil or waiting for me to climb down! The snow on the north face had softened by the time we were going back down, and we moved as quickly as my tired legs would allow until we were clear of sérac fall danger. We returned down the Glacier Blanc, past the Refuge des Écrins, and keeping to the glacier this time continued to the Refuge du Glacier Blanc, arriving in time for lunch and a celebratory beer.

With Murray having gone on ahead, I rested for a couple of hours at the refuge before taking my time back down the last 700m to the car at Pré de Mme Carle and the drive back to les Vigneaux.