The weather has continued to be perfect in Les Ecrins. Martin, Ivor and I have made the most of this by travelling from Ailefroide to La Berarde. From here, on Tuesday, we made the steep walk to the Refuge du Soreiller.
This hut gives access to a number of amazing granite summits including; Aiguille Dibona, Aiguille Centrale de Soreiller and Tete du Rouget.
We decided to climb the Pointes de Burlan (3299m) via Le Voie Muriabelle (D+,V+). The route gives excellent varied climbing on red granite.
The descent can be made either via abseil or a long scrambling ridge. We opted to abseil. Care should be taken with this to avoid the ropes jamming.
It is worth noting an important mistake in the guidebook. It suggests the route can be climbed on a 30 metre rope. This is incorrect. At least two of the pitches are 45 metres in length. To abseil the route, two 50 metre ropes are required. The route has lots of bolts on the harder sections. On the easier sections, the bolting is sparse and some teams may choose to carry a few wires and a couple of cam’s.
