Steep Couloirs and New Friends

The Refuge de Chalance is one of the few precious, unguarded alpine huts in the French Alps. Perched high above the tranquil Valgaudemar valley in the southwest of the Écrins massif, it is located in a flat, rock-surrounded area, far from the big city, and consists of a single room with a cooking space, a dining area, five beds below and a mezzanine with six beds above. Built in 1970, it has the lozenge shape characteristic of the time, reminiscent of several huts in the Vanoise. It feels as if you are visiting a secular hermitage or a celestial observatory.

With Silvia and Stefano, our Italian friends and alpine guides, Valentine and I headed south to the Écrins to make the most of a brief period of stable weather and snow conditions. Given how remote the Refuge de Chalance is, I had little doubt that we would be alone, especially in mid-February.

Passing the “road closed” barrier at Bourg wearing trainers and carrying the skis on our packs, we soon discovered why it was off limits to cars in winter. The hillside above us had been raining rocks and avalanche debris, and the tarmac had huge bomb craters in it. A little further along, the road had been entirely

washed away by a landslide, and the remaining tarmac overhung the void. We crept past, keeping a furtive gaze upwards in case any rogue rocks might still tumble down.

From Rif du Sap we trotted up a steep, narrow path. The air temperature began to soar in the early afternoon, and we were soon sweating profusely in our t-shirts. After a couple of hours, we reached the snow line near Cabane de la Muande at over 6,500 feet and finally clipped into our skis. There was an old skin track with a trench of melted footprints on top, suggesting a couple of teams had visited recently. To our surprise, we spotted four guys on the terrace as we neared the refuge. They were as surprised as us and busied to make space for us as we arrived. We learned they had driven from Paris and walked up the previous day, but it had been so hot that their tracks had since melted.

Leaving Bourg at 9 am, they had taken 12 hours to ascend the 4,600 feet to the hut, arriving in the dark. Not realizing there would be so much snow, they were equipped with fur-lined rubber boots and running spikes rather than crampons or snowshoes. We listened to their story with our mouths open, impressed and horrified in equal measure.

We spent the evening in the warm glow of mountain friendship and went to bed early. The Parisians faced a long descent with poor footwear on frozen snow and crept out into the darkness at 6.30 am. We set off a few hours later and wound our way up to the ridge of the Brèche de la Muande.

opened up into a large hanging bay of deep, cold snow. We got back on skis, and I began to smash out a track making steep, delicate kick turns up the bay and the steeper ramp above to reach a large, hanging amphitheater high up the wall. We paused briefly to eat and then climbed up a long gully that led to an exposed notch below the final rock face. Further down we had been sheltered, but now, in the stiff north wind, we rushed to put on some clothes.

Valentine skied down first, making carefully calculated turns in steep, exposed terrain. We skied on increasingly improving snow past Lac de la Muande, passing the base of Rouies and tracking up in the shade to find the hidden entrance to the giant north-west couloir. The terrain was colossal and the mysterious couloir above us looked tantalizing as it disappeared between massive rock walls. Silvia broke trail on foot up the first gully, which

We crossed the top to the Glacier des Rouies plateau and were greeted by a sweeping view of the wild interior of the Écrins. A short traverse led us to the summit when the day was already well advanced. All around were peaks I still dream of: L’Olan, L’Ailefroide, Les Bans – a lifetime of climbs in this massif alone.

During our 6,500-foot descent across the rugged glacier plateau, past the Refuge du Pigeonnier and into the avalanche gullies leading to Gioberney, we traversed the full range of horrendous skiing conditions.

In the middle, between the icy crust above and the sticky glue further down, we only managed a few elegant turns. Finally, we reached the end of the road as the last orange light faded on the horizon. Back at the car, I sent a message to the Paris crew to make sure they had returned safely. In fact, they had experienced another full-day epic on the descent and reached their car at 3 pm. Undoubtedly, each of them had learned to appreciate the complexity and beauty of winter in the mountains.