MAP AND HIKING GUIDE
IGN TOP 25 Map - 3335ET - LE BOURG-D'OISANS, L'ALPE D'HUEZ, GRANDES ROUSSES, SEPT LAUX
OBP Trail Map No. 3 (Oisans au Bout des Pieds), trails 312, 254b, and 255

ITINERARY
You’ll start on a narrow, balcony-like trail offering beautiful views of the Écrins Massif, particularly the Roche de la Muzelle, majestic with its glacier and rocky ridge.
Shortly after the pretty chapel of Saint-Géraud, you’ll take a pastoral trail that leads to the hamlet of Cluy, with its few buildings, including the Auris-en-Oisans sheepfold. Following the trail that climbs through the alpine pasture, you’ll reach a spot known as “Sous le Col de Cluy,” where a grassy trail leads you to the Chalet de Campaloup.
It turns into a trail that climbs the slope of the Grandes Buffes mountain, almost to its summit. It then continues, beneath the flight of griffon vultures, to the Col de Grange Pellorce.
Here, the final ascent awaits you, leading to the summit with its cross at 2,373 meters. You’re at the center of a 360° view of an exceptional panorama.


HIGHLIGHTS ALONG THE ROUTE
- Saint-Géraud Chapel and Lookout: A bench with a view of La Meije is located next to the small chapel.
- Views of the Meije Glacier, the Écrins Massif, Les 2 Alpes, then the Grandes Rousses, Sarenne, the Aiguilles d’Arves, and the Emparis Plateau.
- Cassini’s Cross: It was because of the unique, unobstructed views from its summit that King Louis XV’s surveyor, Cassini III, chose this spot for his mapping of the region in 1739. He named it after himself to commemorate the “visit” of this illustrious representative of the King to the valley. The Croix de Cassini was erected by M. Reymond and F. Pichoud around 1975; the exact date is unknown.

GOOD TO KNOW
- Who hasn’t heard of NASA’s Cassini space probe, launched by a Titan rocket from Cape Canaveral in 1997 and which reached Saturn’s vicinity in 2004? But how many people know who the astronomer of that name was? A Savoyard astronomer and engineer who became a naturalized French citizen in 1673, he was the first director of the Paris Observatory. The Cassini Cross was chosen as the site for the observatory in the 19th century.