Parking lot by the side of the road at La Gouille

If you see this, you might think that icefalls at La Gouille are swarming with climbers. You'd be wrong though. We spent two days at the falls. On the first day there was one other group, with five climbers, on the second day we were alone. As I would find out not much later, the reason for all these cars lies high up on the western slopes of the valley: Pointe de Vouasson (3490m). That's 1650 m higher than La Gouille, but after the hard work to get up there, you can ski down all the way. Well, almost anyway - when I was up there four days later, I found that while the slopes were never steep, the last few minutes to the top there wasn't enough snow on the rocks for skis; the wind had blown it away. 6 March 2014.