France : Mountaineering in the Ecrins

I had the opportunity to go mountaineering  for the first time  with the Belgian Alpine Club. We went to the region of the Ecrins near Briançon in the small village of Vallouise. We stayed at the gite "Le Baouti" (http://www.gite-le-baouti.com/) for the week and I would recommend it as a base camp to explore the region.

After learning the basics we went on the first day to La Meije (La Grave) where we climbed the "Col of Ruillans" (3200m). We cheated a little bit though because we took a cable car for most part of the climb.

On the next day we went to the refuge of the "Glacier Blanc" (http://clubalpin.briancon.free.fr/glacierblanc.html) at 2500m and did some basics in working in group in the mountain. The day after we went on top of  "Pic du Glacier d'Arsine (3364m)" and went back down.

On Thursday we went a via ferrata just outside of Vallouise en went to visit the beautiful city of Briançon.

On the last days we went up to the refuge of the "Bans" to be able to leave early on the next morning to climb our last summit the "Point of Red Beefs (3516m)".