Refuge Villar d'Arene, Franc

 Arriving at the gite last night and had an excellent feed, we chose to do a warm up route up the valley today.

The sun was welcoming us to the Ecrins and we walked down to the end of the track and got our skis ready and put the skins on.

There was a lot of tracks and there and this was obviously a popular place to go into the mountains.

 The track headed off up the valley on a very flat trajectory, as it followed the river plain to where the valley narrowed.

As the valley narrowed we followed the left hand bank for a while as the river snaked below.

 At the end of the valley the path climbed up a steep bank, and then worked it way up a very patchy, rock strewn slope to get to the upper pastures.

The path was very icy here and the debate over crampons went on, however we struggled on.

 Once in the upper pastures there was some respite for a while, until it reached the next wall to be over come.

This had more snow on and was a little easier.

 Above the wall we reached the next pasture, and stopped at the weather station.
Time was passing, and we chose not to push on to the hut.

 We dropped back down the slopes, on the spring snow, which gave a good surface to blow away the cobwebs for the year.

Dropping down the patchy slope on the final wall, was a bit of a nightmare for me..  forcing my ski around on a very tight turn, I tweaked a knee ligament, and there was much swearing, and cursing.  However strapping it up I continued, which I believe kept it supple for the day.

The poleing on the flat section at the end was an effort, however we had supplies all lined up to go with the tea as we sat in the common room. I was worried what my knee would be like tomorrow, but Bryon had some ironmongery to support it, and we had a night to rest it.