L'Arpelin, Pic de Rochebrune, Pic Est de Cote Belle

July 31, 2025

L'Arpelin, Pic de Rochebrune, Pic Est de Cote Belle

L'Arpelin - 2604M

125M Prominence

44.82636, 6.74187

July 31, 2025

Pic de Rochebrune - 3320M

1019M Prominence

44.82229, 6.78755

July 31, 2025

Pic Est de Cote Belle - 2914M

114M Prominence

44.81368, 6.76348

July 31, 2025

12.2 KM

1470M Ascent and Descent

5H 30M C2C

On my last day in the Alps before heading back down to the plains of Turin, I knew that I wanted to bag a few more peaks. From the research I had done in the previous days, I found Pic de Rochebrune to be an easy and quick outing on a P1K over 3000M. While camping out the night before in a valley adjacent to Rochebrune in the area knows as Le Queyras, I found out that I might be able to tag a few more nearby summits to the next day's mission. Firstly, L'Armelin would be a super quick and easy bonus right from the start. The other summit I would try to add on is Pic Est de Cote Belle. This one was a bit more of a mystery, as the only info I could find on an ascent, aside from ski touring in the winter, was on the other side of the peak, and climbing it from that side would have extended the hike significantly. After coming up with a loose plan, I caught an uncomfortable night's sleep on my slowly deflating air mattress, and got going. I first made my way into the small hamlet of Le Laus, from there I hitched a ride up to the Col d'Izoard with an Australian paraglider. The col sits at an already quite elevated 2360M. I started off by making my way up a further 100 meters up to Col Perdu, and then I hiked my way up the South side of l'Arpelin a further 150 meters until I was on the summit. The ascent was very simple but quite scenic as the West side has some exposure. The summit is quite impressive from the road, but is really just a small bump on this area. This was especially apparent when looking East at the Main objective of the day Pic de Rochebrune, which stands over 800 meters above l'Arpelin. With that being said, I continued my way back down to Col Perdu and then hiked East for a while on a pretty easy to follow route. The route cut across a large scree slope under the jagged ridgeline that connects Pic de Rochebrune and Pic Est de Cote Belle as it slowly gained elevation. As I neared Col des Portes, the hike steepened up a bit but was still just class 2. Col des Portes is at 2920M, so there was still a further 400 meters of climbing to go until the summit. I left the big gendarme at the col and continued along my route. The route started out with a big slog up a steep slope of very loose and often large rocks. Thankfully I was by myself, so any rocks that I triggered would not land on anyone. The route faded out, and the hike up this part was a bit of a free for all, but eventually I made my way toward a quite steep and ledgy gulley that would require some scrambling. The gulley is quite distinguishable as there is a big tower that appears to be the summit on the left side, next to a smaller tower on the right. At the top of this gulley there was another sort of col. At this point there seems to only be one way to ascend the peak, as there is a fixed rope hanging down a steep face. Upon descending the peak I found out that this was not necessary. I decided to use the rope and aid myself up the steep face. Near the top of the rope I realized I could make my way right and ascend on easier terrain that was far less exposed scrambling. This basically took me up to the summit where there was a cement platform. It was an incredible bluebird day and a great way to end the Europe peak bagging spree with some top notch views. Upon descent I decided to follow the wide gulley with the less challenging scramble down further. At the bottom I was forced to climb back up a few meters to gain the col where the roped section started. I then proceeded to descend back down the gulley and down to Col des Portes. The rockfall was nonstop and there were many hikers coming up so I tried to be as careful as possible and occasionally wait in dangerous spots. From Cold des Portes I descended further down to 2670 meters along the trail. I then split off and began hiking up toward Pic Est de Cote Belle since I had lots of time. I eventually gained the top of the ridge after struggling up the loose rock for a while. I tried to use the more solid rock formations closer to the top of the ridge to my advantage, but it ended up just making my ascent more convoluted. From the top of the ridge there was a fun scramble up to the summit, which ended up being further than I expected after cresting a false summit. The ascent route was most definitely longer and much more of a suffer fest than if I would have continued down the trail further and climbed a more straight line up to the summit. I decided not to do this though as it added a meager 100 meters of ascent and descent. The descent off Pic Est de Cote Belle was A straight shot down the North face. I had seen a route that looked quite simple from earlier in the morning when I was on the first summit, so I tried to find this line. I scrambled a few meters on somewhat solid rock off the summit, then scree skied my way down 300 meters of steep scree. Near the bottom I had to be a bit more careful not to trigger any rock slides onto the trail below, as there were hikers passing by occasionally. I re gained the trail and descended down to 2400 meters before climbing back up to Col Perdu. From col perdu I was then only minutes away from Col d'Izoard where I stashed my gear next to where the road was. In the afternoon I hitch hiked my way back down into Briancon, and then lucked out on a hitch all the way into Turin where I planned to end my Europe 2025 trip.

Some awesome drone footage of Pic de Rochebrune found here : Pic de Rochebrune (3320m) - Il piccolo MONVISO del QUEYRAS! - YouTube