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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.