Pic Ouest de Combeynot

July 30, 2025

Pic Ouest de Combeynot

Pic Ouest de Combeynot - 3155M

815M Prominence

45.01257, 6.41105

July 29-30, 2025

20.7KM

1590M Ascent, 1970M Descent

My ascent of Pic Ouest de Combeynot started the day before the actual ascent when I descended Le Grand Galibier down to Col du Lautaret and began hiking around the North East side of the Combeynot massif toward the village of Le Lauzet. This part of the hike was one very gradual descent down along the river of "La Guisane". It was a hot afternoon and the hike was quite exposed to the sun, but once I made it to Le Lauzet I was able to hike to the trailhead for the Lac de Combeynot and cool off in the river. From there I ascended 560 meters up from the river along a good trail. I wanted to camp in the forest to still be slightly sheltered in case of any wind as my tent pole was broken. I made it up to 2180 meters where the trees started to thin out, and there was not much good real estate for a tent. After a bit of exploring around I found a patch of moss under a snaggly tree just big enough for my tent. In the morning I woke up and left my camping gear by the side of the trail and started to make my way towards the summit. I started by continuing up the trail that led to Lac du Combeynot. This trail was in pretty good shape aside from a few eroded parts and very easy to follow. The trail up to the lake sees quite a bit of traffic as most people just hike up for the lake. From the lake I followed a feint trail up along the East side of the lake across a big scree slope. After crossing the slope there was a bit of a plateau and the trail was impossible to follow. I kept moving across the scree and made my way towards the start of the chimney. I had read a description of the chimney the day before, so I kind of new what I was looking for, but I didn't have a GPX route for this peak, so it left some route finding up to me. I passed by a first chimney that was the wrong one, and then the obvious massive scree chimney appeared on the right. It was quite steep and quite challenging to climb, as it was the sort of scree that you sink 2 steps for every step you take. I tried to stick to the right hand side of the chimney as I climbed as there was a more solid rock face that I could use to hold on to. The chimney was about 100 meters high, then I had a sight of the ridge I was aiming for above. I was roughly aiming for the col between Pic Ouest and Pic Est. The East peak is roughly 10 meters smaller than the West summit and also a much more simple objective, as it is just a hike after ascending the same chimney. Getting up to the ridge required some hands on class 3 scrambling, as did the rest of the ascent up to the summit. I aimed towards a cool arched rock feature, and then started making my way West towards the summit. North of the ridge the exposure was quite extreme, but the actual route I ended up taking never felt extremely exposed and I managed to stay away from the North side of the ridge. The ridge traverse started with a deviation South around a large gendarme, and there was some steep traversing around it. The traverse then got a bit easier, but required attentiveness. The summit offered fantastic views of the big summits in the Parc des Ecrins. This was the closest I could get to them without needing to do any glacier traverses, but I hope to be back some day with a partner and the adequate gear for it. After a while enjoying the summit I began to make my descent. I simply followed the same route as I ascended, back down past the gendarme, down to the chimney, down to the lake, and back down to camp. From camp I packed up my gear and came up with a plan for the next day. The last day would be my final day in the Alps, and the final interesting summit of the trip, as I had a flight booked for the August 6th back to Canada.

A great photo album that recounts an ascent of the two peaks found here: Album photo - Pics de Combeynot : Ouest (3155m) et Est (3145m)