France · Southern Alps
Écrins Tour in 9 Days - Comfort
A guided hillwalking week in the wildest massif of the Alps
The GR54 runs 188 km with 11,000 m of ascent. This 9-day Écrins tour keeps 10,300 m of that and walks only 148 km: the valley floors come out, the cols stay in. 6 cols above 2,500 m in 8 walking days, 2 of them, the col de l’Aup Martin (2,761 m) and the pas de la Cavale (2,735 m), crossed on the same day.
What you carry fits in a day sack, the bags travel by vehicle, and every night is a twin room in a valley hotel. The format is common on the Tour du Mont Blanc. On the Écrins it takes knowing the valleys well enough to tell which ones repay walking and which are better driven.
At Altimood, we live at the foot of this tour, in the Champsaur, and we have walked its cols in both directions. What gets walked here is the plateau d’Emparis, the col d’Arsine, the Eychauda, the Aup Martin, Vallonpierre and the Vaurze. You arrive the evening before at the first hotel, which leaves 8 full days behind it, with no half-stage walk-in.
Calling the Écrins the wildest massif of the Alps is a position, not a measurement. The Queyras, the Vanoise, the Ubaye and the Mercantour each have valleys where you meet nobody. What is checkable here is the density: 92,000 hectares of national park core zone, and 5 valleys that no road connects directly to one another. On some GR54 stages you walk past no house all day.
By the numbers:
- Duration: 9 days, of which 8 are walking days (you arrive the evening before at the first hotel)
- Distance: 148 km
- Total ascent: 10,300 m
- Daily ascent: 680 to 1,640 m, 5.5 to 7.5 hours of walking
- High point: col de l’Aup Martin, 2,761 m
- Accommodation: hotel, twin room, 8 nights
- What you carry: day sack only
- Group: 6 to 10 participants
- Start: Bourg-d’Oisans (option from Le Monêtier-les-Bains)
What makes this trip different
What stands out on this week
- 6 cols above 2,500 m in 8 days, including the col de l’Aup Martin (2,761 m) and the pas de la Cavale (2,735 m), crossed on the same day
- A twin room every night, with 2 hotels where you stay 2 nights running: you unpack once for 2 days
- A day sack, never more: the bags travel by vehicle and shuttles cover the valley-to-valley links
- One day off the GR54 at the lacs de Pétarel, facing the south wall of the Olan, which the waymarked route skirts from below
- A group of 6 to 10, with a state-qualified mountain guide who plans the week and leads it in person
What it takes
How hard it is, and who this 9-day Écrins tour suits
This is not a first multi-day trek. The comfort sits in the nights and in what you carry, rather than in the days: 1,290 m of ascent on average, with 2 stages above 1,590 m and one alone under 1,000 m. You need to string 8 days together at that rate with no rest day, and to be at ease on the schist descents off the Vaurze and the pas de la Cavale.
It is a demanding week, 4 out of 5. In Irish terms, the average day carries more ascent than Carrauntoohil from Cronin’s Yard, and day 9 is close to the whole Coomloughra Horseshoe done in one climb, on the ninth morning. What is different is the ground rather than the effort: the paths here are built and drained, so the bog and the pathless heather that make an Irish day slow are simply absent, and the pace holds better than the figures suggest.
The format suits a group of friends or a walking club already used to weeks in the mountains, where everyone moves at roughly the same speed. For a gentler way into the massif, the 5-day Écrins traverse is the entry point.
2 things work in your favour against the standard GR54. The pack stays at 6-8 kg instead of 12-15. And the nights are low: the hotels sit between 700 and 1,650 m while the walking tops out at 2,761 m, so you climb high and sleep low for 8 days running, which matters more than it sounds when you come from a country whose high point is 1,038 m.
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Day by day
Itinerary - the Écrins tour in 9 days, day by day
Day 1: arrival in the Vénéon valley
Meeting late in the afternoon at Bourg-d’Oisans, then a 20-minute shuttle to the hotel, in the Vénéon valley. Bourg-d’Oisans is 1 hour 15 by bus from Grenoble station.
That evening is for getting to know each other, checking sacks and going through the week with your guide. It is also what makes a full first day of walking possible the next morning, instead of the usual half-stage walk-in.
Night in a twin room, Vénéon valley.
Day 2: lac Lauvitel and lac de la Muzelle
- Distance: 18.2 km
- Dénivelé positif: 1639 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 1635 m
The biggest day of the tour, placed where the legs are fresh. Climb to the lac Lauvitel, 35 hectares held back by a prehistoric landslide, part of it classed as a strict reserve: entry forbidden, no human intervention since 1995, one of the few places in France where the forest runs without us.
Then over the col de la Muzelle (2,613 m) to the lake of the same name and its refuge, and down to the Vénéon. The loop comes back to the hotel: second night in the same place, no shuttle.
The group can shorten this stage by stopping at the Lauvitel if the weather turns. The climb to the col is decided on the spot.
Day 3: plateau d’Emparis, facing the Meije
- Distance: 17 km
- Dénivelé positif: 1125 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 886 m
A 35-minute shuttle to above Besse-en-Oisans, a village of lauze stone roofs, then the plateau d’Emparis crossed west to east. The plateau holds around 2,400 m facing the Meije (3,983 m), 4 km away as the crow flies: the north face and its glaciers fill the whole southern horizon, with nothing in front of them.
Past the lac Noir and the lac Lérié, the 2 pools that make the plateau worth photographing at first light. The descent reaches Le Chazelet and its oratory, the classic viewpoint onto the Meije, then a 20-minute shuttle to the hotel at Villar-d’Arène.
Day 4: sentier des Crevasses and lac du Glacier d’Arsine
- Distance: 19.5 km
- Dénivelé positif: 679 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 1205 m
A 10-minute shuttle to the col du Lautaret (2,058 m), which hands you 700 m of ascent for free and makes this the gentlest climbing day of the tour. It is also the day you spend longest walking with glaciers in front of you: the sentier des Crevasses runs as a balcony path above the vallon du Petit Tabuc, opposite the glaciers of the Casset, on a line that is high and open without ever asking for a head for heights.
A detour to the lac du Glacier d’Arsine (2,450 m), below the glacier whose meltwater it collects: its colour shifts through the day with the silt load. Over the col d’Arsine (2,340 m) and down to Le Casset, then Le Monêtier-les-Bains.
Le Monêtier is where you can join or leave the circuit if you are coming in through Briançon.
Day 5: col des Grangettes and lac de l’Eychauda
- Distance: 19.8 km
- Dénivelé positif: 1337 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 1553 m
On foot from the hotel door. A long climb up the vallon de la Selle to the col des Grangettes (2,684 m), the high point of the day, then down to the lac de l’Eychauda (2,514 m), pressed against the north side of the Pic de l’Yret.
The rest drops into the vallon des Chambrans towards the Vallouise, with the Barre des Écrins (4,102 m) and the Pelvoux facing you the whole way down. Night at Saint-Antoine, a hamlet at the mouth of the valley.
Day 6: col de l’Aup Martin and pas de la Cavale
- Distance: 21.2 km
- Dénivelé positif: 1272 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 1411 m
The day the GR54 is known for. A 25-minute shuttle to Entre-les-Aigues, at the head of the Vallouise, then up the valley to the col de l’Aup Martin (2,761 m), the high point of the GR54: the last ramp goes through loose black schist, with a fixed handline over some 30 m. It is not scrambling in the technical sense, but it asks for a sure foot and poles.
The pas de la Cavale (2,735 m) follows straight after, without dropping far in between. 2 cols above 2,700 m in one day, which happens nowhere else on the tour. The descent joins the vallon du Drac Blanc and the refuge du Pré de la Chaumette, then Champoléon. A 25-minute shuttle to the hotel, in the Champsaur.
We advise against this stage in poor visibility or on residual snow. If that is the case, the guide switches to the vallée de Freissinières route described further down.
Day 7: col de Vallonpierre and the cirque du Gioberney
- Distance: 20.2 km
- Dénivelé positif: 1550 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 1395 m
Back by shuttle to the head of the Champoléon valley, 25 minutes, where the walking stopped the day before. Up the Drac Blanc and over the col de Vallonpierre (2,607 m), which takes you from the Champsaur into the Valgaudemar. The refuge de Vallonpierre and its lake sit just below the col, at the foot of the Sirac (3,441 m), whose pyramid earned the Valgaudemar its nickname of French Himalaya.
A balcony descent towards Chabournéou, then to the cirque du Gioberney and the Voile de la Mariée waterfall. A half-hour shuttle back down the whole valley to the hotel at l’Ubac, where the group stays 2 nights.
Day 8: lacs de Pétarel, off the GR54
- Distance: 16.8 km
- Dénivelé positif: 1144 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 1477 m
The GR54 keeps to the valley floor and misses the lacs de Pétarel. It is the only day of the tour entirely off the waymarked route, and for a lot of participants it is the one they remember. A 20-minute shuttle in the morning up to Les Portes, at La Chapelle-en-Valgaudémar.
The lakes sit on a shelf at 2,060 m, facing the south wall of the Olan (3,564 m), 1,500 m of relief that comes back off the water when there is no wind. The traverse carries on as a balcony above the Valgaudemar before dropping to Saint-Maurice. The day finishes on foot at the hotel door, no shuttle.
Day 9: col de la Vaurze and the Valjouffrey
- Distance: 15.8 km
- Dénivelé positif: 1598 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 1366 m
Last stage, and the second biggest of the tour: a 10-minute shuttle to Villar-Loubière, then 1,600 m of climbing in one push to the col de la Vaurze (2,500 m). The path works up a south-facing slope in tight zigzags, best done early in the morning at the height of summer.
From the col you look back at the Valgaudemar walked over the 2 previous days, and forward to the Valjouffrey and Le Désert, one of the most isolated hamlets in the massif. The descent is long and schisty. Shuttle back to Bourg-d’Oisans in the late afternoon, an hour of road over the col d’Ornon.
The itinerary can be adjusted at any time by the guide, depending on weather, the physical and technical capacities of the group, accommodation availability or anything else unforeseen. The GPX tracks and elevation profiles are indicative: the guide adapts the line in real time to ground conditions and to safety.
Beyond this trip
The 10-day variant: Dormillouse and the vallée de Freissinières
This is the version we prefer, and it leaves the GR54.
In place of the col de l’Aup Martin day, the circuit drops into the vallée de Freissinières and climbs to Dormillouse, a hamlet at 1,750 m that no road reaches: you get there on foot, 45 minutes of climbing, and everything up there was carried up on somebody’s back or flown in. About 15 residents in winter, and a school that reopens when there are children. The Protestant temple is a reminder that the valley sheltered the Waldensians and then the Huguenots for 3 centuries.
2 days replace one:
- Lacs de Dormillouse and de Faravel from the hamlet, 13.3 km and 1,170 m of ascent, in a hanging valley where the ibex is at home. Night at Dormillouse, twin room, in refuge-style accommodation kept open year round.
- Col de Freissinières (2,782 m) the next day, the highest crossing of the whole week, with the descent to Prapic and the Champsaur. 21.8 km and 1,180 m of ascent.
This variant costs one more shuttle: 45 minutes of road from the Vallouise to reach the bottom of the vallée de Freissinières, instead of 25 minutes to Entre-les-Aigues. The return then runs through Prapic, 10 minutes from the Champsaur hotel.
The trip goes to 10 days and 9 walking days, for 162 km and 11,400 m of ascent. It is one more day, a night in a place that barely exists anywhere else in the Alps, and the only way to see this valley: no long-distance route crosses it.
- Distance: 13.3 km
- Dénivelé positif: 1173 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 894 m
- Distance: 21.8 km
- Dénivelé positif: 1180 m
- Dénivelé négatif: 1423 m
Dates and prices
Dates and booking
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Want to treat someone special? You can offer this trip as a mountain gift card.
Price
2 519 € per personThe trip is confirmed from 6 participants. The 10-day variant is quoted separately.
The price includes
- guiding by a state-qualified mountain guide
- the 8 half-board nights (dinner, twin room, breakfast) in hotels
- the packed lunches (x8), made from organic, local and seasonal produce
- every shuttle in the itinerary
- baggage transport between the hotels
- loan of walking poles and a day sack if you need them
The price does not include your compulsory trek insurance, drinks, booking fees and anything not listed above.
This trip runs from mid-June to mid-September depending on how much snow is left on the cols. Outside that window the high crossings stay under snow, and shorter trips around the valley heads and the lower balcony paths are built on request.
Private group, or built from scratch
The group is yours, so are the dates, and the itinerary bends towards what you want out of the week. A tailor-made trip starts from your dates and your group rather than from a published departure, and the 7-question level test gives you a marker before you write to us.
Self-guided, at your own pace
Your hotels are booked, your bags moved from one stage to the next, and you follow a route book on paper or an app with the GPX track. Navigation and pace are yours. It is sometimes the right answer depending on how you like to travel, and our page on self-guided walking in the Alps says more about how it works. Write to us with your plan even in this form: we frame it with you and pass it to the agency we work with.
Beyond this trip
Why 9 days for the Écrins tour?
The full GR54 is 188 km and 11,000 m of ascent. The guidebook split runs to 12 stages, most walkers take 10 to 13 days, and the sporting floor for a self-supported round sits around 9 walking days.
This trip fits into 8 walking days because it does not do all of it on foot. The valley-floor links, the ones that cost time without giving new ground, are covered by shuttle: the Vénéon to Besse, Le Chazelet to Villar-d’Arène, the Vallouise to Entre-les-Aigues, Champoléon to the Champsaur, Le Gioberney to the mouth of the Valgaudemar. What is left is the cols and the high traverses. Reckon on about 4.5 hours of road across the 9 days, arrival and return included, half an hour a day on average.
The arithmetic is simple: 148 km on foot instead of 188, but 10,300 m of ascent instead of 11,000. You keep 94 % of the GR54's climbing while cutting 21 % of the distance. That is what you want when the walking has to come out of a fortnight of annual leave with the flights at either end.
A faster 7-day version exists too, cutting across on secondary paths and sleeping in refuges and bivouacs. It is a private-booking format and it asks for a level above this one.
Before you go
Practical information
Meeting point and finish
Day 1, meeting late in the afternoon at Bourg-d’Oisans, from where a shuttle reaches the first hotel. Day 9, the trip finishes at Bourg-d’Oisans in the late afternoon.
Bourg-d’Oisans is 1 hour 15 by bus from Grenoble station, and Grenoble is 3 hours from Paris by TGV. From Dublin the shortest way in is Geneva, about 2.5 hours from Grenoble by coach, or Lyon, about 1 hour 15. Both take direct summer flights from Dublin, and Paris works too if the fare is better, at the cost of the TGV leg. Cork and Shannon route through Paris or a hub.
A morning flight on day 1 gets you to Bourg-d’Oisans in time for the late-afternoon meeting, but it leaves no margin at all. A night in Grenoble or Bourg-d’Oisans the evening before is the safer plan.
Option from Le Monêtier-les-Bains: the circuit is a loop, so it can start and finish at Le Monêtier, which suits you better if you come in through Briançon. The order of the stages shifts, the content is identical. Flag it when you book.
Lift-sharing between participants is organised through a WhatsApp group set up before the trip, which is mostly useful to those driving in from within France.
Accommodation
8 nights in a twin room, in valley hotels, with private bathrooms. 6 establishments for 8 nights: the group stays 2 nights running in the Vénéon valley (days 1 and 2) and 2 nights in the Valgaudemar (days 7 and 8), at a hotel with a pool and a hammam.
If your room type is unavailable when you book, which happens on late requests, a triple or quad room may be offered instead. We keep your twin-room request open with the hotel and tell you which nights are affected when the booking is confirmed.
Nights at altitude on request: this circuit passes several staffed refuges, including the refuge de Vallonpierre on day 7 and the refuge de la Muzelle on day 2. On a private booking, one or two refuge nights can replace valley nights, which removes the matching shuttles and puts you at the col at first light. Sleeping there is in a dormitory. What separates a refuge from a gîte, and what a night in either involves, is set out in our page on mountain huts and gîtes.
Meals
Packed lunches are put together as a group in the morning, from food bought ahead by the guide. Allergies, intolerances and particular diets are declared at booking and passed to the hotels for dinners and breakfasts.
Transfers
Every shuttle is driven by the guide and included in the price. The times below are indicative, and run a little longer on valley roads in high season.
| Day | Transfer | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bourg-d’Oisans to the Vénéon valley | 20 min |
| 3 | the Vénéon to Besse-en-Oisans | 35 min |
| 3 | Le Chazelet to Villar-d’Arène | 20 min |
| 4 | Villar-d’Arène to the col du Lautaret | 10 min |
| 6 | the Vallouise to Entre-les-Aigues | 25 min |
| 6 | Champoléon to the Champsaur hotel | 25 min |
| 7 | back to the head of the Champoléon valley | 25 min |
| 7 | Le Gioberney to l’Ubac, low in the Valgaudemar | 30 min |
| 8 | l’Ubac to Les Portes, back on foot in the evening | 20 min |
| 9 | l’Ubac to Villar-Loubière | 10 min |
| 9 | Le Désert-en-Valjouffrey to Bourg-d’Oisans, over the col d’Ornon | 1 hour |
Days 2 and 5 have no shuttle at all, and day 8 finishes on foot at the hotel. The optional refuge nights remove the matching shuttles.
What you carry
A 25 to 30 litre day sack is enough. Bags are moved by vehicle between hotels. Bring walking poles, which you will want on the schist descents off the Vaurze and the pas de la Cavale.
Paperwork
- A valid passport or Irish national identity card
- Your European Health Insurance Card, which covers you in France
- Public liability insurance covering walking as a leisure activity
- Assistance and repatriation insurance is compulsory, cancellation insurance strongly recommended
Book this Écrins tour privately
The circuit works well for a group that already exists, a walking club or a set of friends used to weeks in the mountains. On a private booking the pace is set by the group, and refuge nights can be mixed in with hotel nights. The Freissinières variant is added by quote.
The tour can also be halved, keeping the northern half (Emparis and Arsine) or the southern half (Vallonpierre and the Vaurze), for a 4 to 5 day trip. Ring Robin directly on +33 7 69 44 78 66, or write to bonjouraltimood.com .
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Before you decide
Frequently asked questions
Does this 9-day Écrins tour really follow the GR54?
7 of the 8 days use sections of the GR54: Emparis, the col d’Arsine, the Eychauda, the Aup Martin and the pas de la Cavale, Vallonpierre, the Vaurze, the Muzelle. The eighth, at the lacs de Pétarel, leaves it on purpose. The valley-floor links of the waymarked route, on the other hand, are covered by shuttle: this is not the full GR54 on foot, it is the GR54 reduced to its cols. For the complete route stage by stage, see our page on the GR54, tour of the Écrins.
I walk in Ireland, does the altitude change anything?
A little, and less than most people expect on this particular circuit. The cols sit between 2,300 and 2,761 m, high enough that you notice the last 200 m of a climb, and the usual effect at those altitudes is a slower pace rather than anything else. What helps here is the shape of the trip: you sleep between 700 and 1,650 m every night, so the body gets 8 low nights while the days go high. Coming from a country topping out at 1,038 m, that pattern does the work an acclimatisation day would.
Can you walk the GR54 in 9 days unsupported?
Yes, and it is about the reasonable floor for the full route: 188 km and 11,000 m of ascent over 9 days gives 1,220 m a day, which a trained walker with a refuge pack can hold. Below that you start combining stages or cutting with transfers. The formats are laid out in how many days for the GR54.
What level does this trip ask for?
Demanding, 4 out of 5. You need several days of mountain walking already strung together, 1,300 m of daily ascent held for 8 days, and to be at ease on schist and on the few metres of fixed handline below the col de l’Aup Martin. See our difficulty scale.
When should we go?
Mid-June to mid-September. June often keeps snow on the Aup Martin and the col de Freissinières, the highest of the circuit. July and August give the most reliable conditions, with frequent late-afternoon storms. September is our favourite stretch, for the low light and the empty paths. Valley hotels stay open later than refuges, which stretches the season of this format by a good fortnight.
Can we sleep in refuges rather than hotels?
On a private booking, yes. The circuit passes the refuge de Vallonpierre, the refuge de la Muzelle and the refuge du Pré de la Chaumette. Swapping one or two valley nights for a night at altitude removes the matching shuttles and changes first light completely. Sleeping there is in a dormitory, with a sleeping bag liner.
Is bivouac possible on this circuit?
The Écrins National Park allows bivouac in the core zone, pitching after 7 pm and striking camp before 9 am. This trip does not include any, but we run dedicated formats: see bivouac in the Alps.
Beyond this trip
Further reading
- GR54, tour of the Écrins: the classic stages
- How many days do you need for the GR54?
- Écrins traverse in 5 days, refuge to refuge
- The finest lakes in the Écrins
- Guided or self-guided: which one fits you