Walking in the Alps. Kev Reynolds

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      The moraine path beside the Glacier Noir gives a direct view of Mont Pelvoux and its near neighbours

      The western glen cutting away from Ailefroide is deep and narrow, and was once described as a ‘cheerless and desolate valley [which] contains miles of boulders, débris, stones, sand and mud.’ A path heads into it from Ailefroide and then divides. The right-hand trail continues directly beneath the south face of Pelvoux to reach a pair of climbers’ huts provided by the CAF, Refuge Pelvoux and Refuge du Sélé, while the left-hand option enters another sub-glen, Vallon de Clapous, with a scrambly col at its head by which Entre les Aygues may be reached.

      Val de l’Entre-les-Aygues

      The Val de l’Entre-les-Aygues is another lovely narrow valley that begins beneath the mass of Les Bans and flows eastward, soon among patches of meadowland, then splendid forests that lead nearly all the way down to Vallouise. Part-way along the glen there’s a camping area on the right bank of the river at Pont des Places, otherwise there’s no accommodation to be had except for two huts; one in the cirque at the upper end of the valley, the other in its tributary glen, Vallon de la Selle. The roadhead is about nine kilometres upstream from Vallouise, at Entre les Aygues itself, where there is a buvette and space to park cars. There the valley divides. The continuing, western branch, is that which leads to a cirque topped by Les Bans. The south-west branch, the Vallon de la Selle, is longer and rises to a curious, though strangely attractive, amphitheatre rimmed with a crest of bare rock from which extensive screes and slopes of black grit fan to rough pastures. At the head of that crest Col de l’Aup Martin (2761m) provides access to a secondary valley that plunges eastward and is drained by the Fournel to join the Durance at Argentière-la-Bessée.

      The upper, western, extent of Val de l’Entre-les-Aygues is closed at its head by a bold-looking group of mountains. Pic de Bonvoisin forms the southern limit of this cirque, then come Pic Jocelme, Pic des Aupillous, Les Bans, Pointe des Boeufs Rouges and Pointe Guyard, each one well in excess of 3000 metres, but appearing even higher. In the ridge linking Les Bans and Pointe des Boeufs Rouges two cols suggest strenuous possibilities for achieving a crossing to the upper Vénéon. Whymper’s party made the first crossing of one of these in 1864 (he called it Col de la Pilatte, although his description better fits that of Col des Bans), but that and its neighbour lie outside the scope of this book, for one need only look at the Glacier de la Pilatte which hangs on the other side of the ridge to know that considerable mountaineering skill is a prerequisite for anyone toying with such a proposition.

      South of Les Bans, between Pic des Aupillous and Pic Jocelme, Col du Sellar (3084m) provides another challenging route over the mountains, not to the Vallée du Vénéon, but to the upper Val Gaudémar. This pass also has a small glacier to negotiate on its western side, but Whymper claims that local peasants told him sheep and goats could easily be taken across. The Didier and Richard map, however, marks this col as being both difficult and dangerous, so caution is advised should the route be chosen.

      Below the cirque walls east of the col Refuge des Bans serves as a climber’s base; it’s also a popular destination for short walks from the roadhead on a good footpath that sticks to the true left bank of the Torrent des Bans. At the Entre-les-Aygues roadhead an alternative footpath is directed by signpost across the multi-stranded river and into the Vallon de la Selle, in which the small Cabane du Jas Lacroix stands above the left bank among grassy hummocks and lichen-patterned boulders and with Pointe de Verdonne rising nearby. It is through this glen and over Col de l’Aup Martin and its neighbouring Pas de la Cavale, that the easiest, though certainly not the most direct, route for walkers leads from the Vallouise to the south-western valleys of the Oisans region.