Puy Saint
Vincent
Pelvoux-Vallouise
You want to ride your bike on mountains, to get some fresh air and to get back in form after the confinement? Welcome in the Ecrins! Here, we’re offering you a 3 days-long mountain bike trip.
Take some time to smoothly discover nature with your own rhythm in a spectacular landscape. The tour we offer you can be done on a mountain bike, or on electrically assisted bike.
In Summer 2020, Pays des Ecrins offers you to discover a part of a majestic route: The Great Hautes-Alpes Crossing. The GHAC is the mountain bike crossing route in France and is a sensational path to explore the various valleys of Hautes-Alpes, passing by a lot of picturesque villages. The route that we offer you joins the GHAC near Briançon and leaves it around L’Argentière-la-Bessée, where you can join the train station.
This route lengths for 73 kilometres and climbs 2724 meters up, and can be done in 1, 2 or 3 days. If you want, you can also go on this route with an electrically assisted mountain bike. Thanks to a big part of the track below 1500 meters high, the route guarantees a great comfort to admire the most beautiful landscapes of Ecrins.
The Pays des Ecrins wanted to benefit from the existence of this track to prepare a route that can be made in a few days, without any use of a car! As we want to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we wanted to propose a route with a train station as a start point, and another one as a finish point. Thanks to this, the route can be simply done, while respecting the environment.
All along the route, we propose you several solutions for your accommodation. Many holiday cottages and hostels located on the path are in a partnership with Pays des Ecrins, you can find a list at the end of the article. There are also a few campsites, in Les Vigneaux and in Freissinières. The bivouac is also tolerated, depending on specific regulations of the communes. Bivouac asks people to be respectful of the environment.
The route starts from Briançon’s train station and goes on the right side of the Durance’s valley, going successively in the valleys of Partias, Vallouise, Fournel and Freissinières, before reaching L’Argentière-la-Bessée, passing by the untypical village of Champcella.
A lot of this route’s paths, including the passage of the Lauze’s pass, allow you a lot of amazing points of view and superb panoramas on the Ecrins mountains and its mythical summsits: Pelvoux, Barre des Ecrins and Pic Sans Nom. It is also a motivation to discover the immense variety of the different hamlets and villages composing the Pays des Ecrins. Each one can reveal an architectural or historical wonder, only waiting for your eyes.
Please discover all the information on this route on our portal Geotrek
All information about the GHAC are to be found on the department website.
If you want to take this route in several days, we invite you to discover all our accommodation partners:
- Refuge le Pas du Loup
- Le Jardin des Ecrins
- Renée Naquet ?
- Camping le Courounba
- Les Carlines
- Le Montbrison
- Benoît Perrot
- Jacques Baubion
- Au coeur des Ecrins
- Camping Les Vaudois
- Chalet l’Aigla
- Les 5 saisons
- Chalet Artos
- Les Vaudois
- Chalet de la Biaysse
- Camping les Allouviers
If you use an electrically assisted bike, some terminals to charge your batteries are located in Briançon’s train station, Freissinière’s city hall and the supermarket Carrefour in L’Argentière-la-Bessée. We can also benefit from the network Eborn.
You can contact our information offices in L’Argentière-la-Bessée (+33 4 92 23 03 11) and in Vallouise (+33 4 92 23 36 12).
