Refuge du Promontoire
The standard base for the normal route on Barre des Écrins, the southernmost 4000-metre peak of the Alps. Perched on a rocky promontory above the Glacier Blanc valley.
The Refuge du Promontoire was built by the CAF in 1909 on a rocky promontory at 3092 m at the foot of the Meije, the great Dauphiné rock peak that was the last major Alpine summit to fall in the 19th-century campaign of first ascents (climbed in 1877 by Pierre Gaspard and Emmanuel Boileau de Castelnau). The hut was rebuilt in 1972 and is operated as a guardian-staffed refuge in summer with a winter room kept open year-round.
Despite its name and slightly misleading nearby_peaks listing, the Promontoire is principally a base for the Meije and the Râteau rather than for the Barre des Écrins (which is more commonly approached from the Refuge des Écrins via the Glacier Blanc on the opposite side of the massif). The Dauphiné — the southernmost group of the Alps to carry a 4000-metre summit — was the last range to be systematically explored, partly because of its remoteness from the Chamonix and Zermatt railheads and partly because of the more committing character of its routes; this remoteness is still felt today, and the Promontoire has a markedly quieter atmosphere than the comparably positioned huts further north.
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