Ecrins National Park Page 2 of 4 An overview of the Ecrins National Park The Ecrins National Park was founded in 1973 and is the largest in France (covering 270,000 hectares of which 91,740 make up the central zone). It includes 61 towns and villages of which one third are located within the department of Isère and two thirds within that of Hautes-Alpes. Out of the 91,740 hectares making up the central zone, 739 belong to private landowners. With the one exception of Dormillouse, a hamlet coming under the village of Freissinieres, the central zone has no permanent residents. Map showing the Peripheral and Central Zones of the Ecrins National Park The park is located at an altitude of between 800m and 4,102m above sea level. This wide range in altitude means that the central zone contains broad-leaved woodlands and coniferous forests, moorland and mountain pastures, valley-side screes, lakes, glaciers and rocky mountain faces and peaks, all of which justify its being called "the European mountain park". Entrance to the National Park Geographical features Bounded by the Romanche, Durance and Drac valleys, the Ecrins National Park covers the whole of the spectacular mountain scenery contained within the triangle Grenoble/ Briançon/Gap. It is a region which includes: · in the south-east, the Champsaur range whose sedimentary rocks (shale and sandstone) reach up to more than 3,000m (3,279m at the Rougnoux peak); · in the north, the much more imposing Pelvoux range whose crystalline rock (granite) and metamorphic rock (gneiss) was pushed up to a height of over 4,000m by the folding of the Alps. The whole of this central zone is cut by narrow valleys which were deeply dug out by the Quaternary glaciers and which radiate out from such famous peaks as Meije (3,983m), Barre des Ecrins (4,102m), Ailefroide (3,953m), Bans (3,669m) and Sirac (3,440m). The mountain range is drained by streams and rivers that are tributaries of either the Isère (i.e. the Venéon, the Bonne, the Severaisse, the Drac and the Romanche) or the Durance (i.e. the Torrent de Reallon, the Rabioux, the Byaisse, the Foumel, the Gyronde and the Guisanne). These rivers are supplied almost entirely by thawing snow and by the numerous glaciers in the area. The fact that the Ecrins mountain range is both at a very high altitude, with the resultant frequent heavy snow-falls, but also situated in the south of France, means that its glacier system is extremely interesting. Within the mountain range, side by side with such impressive glaciers as the Glacier Blanc, the Glacier Noir, the Mont-de-Lans and Monetier glaciers, are to be found a mosaic of little glaciers amounting in all to an area of 10,000 hectares of ice. Finally, it is impossible to talk about glaciers without also mentioning mountain lakes, these include Lake du Lauvitel, Lac de la Muzelle, lakes Palluel and Farravel. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Page 2 of 4