Barre des Écrins

The Barre des Écrins is a mountain in the French Alps. It is the highest peak of the "Massif des Écrins" and of the Dauphiné Alps mountain range. It is in the Écrins National Park (), one of the ten French national parks.
It is the only mountain or higher in France that is outside the Mont Blanc Massif. Before the annexation of Savoy, that was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, in 1860, it was the highest mountain in France.
Geography.
Barre des Écrins is in the northeast of the Hautes-Alpes department (commune of Pelvoux), Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in southeast France.
The south side of the mountain is rocky while the soil of the north side is covered with ice because here starts a glacier, the "Glacier Blanc".
Barre des Écrins is surrounded by four glaciers:
History.
The first recorded ascension of the peak was made on 25 June 1864 by the Englishmen Adolphus Warburton Moore, Horace Walker and Edward Whymper, guided by Michel Croz from Chamonix and Christian Almer from Switzerland.
William Auguste Coolidge, a mountain climber from United States made the first direct climb up the north side of the Barre des Ecrins in July 1870.