• Hiking
  • Travel
  • Gear and tips
  • About
  • Contact
  • Behind the lens
  • Photos
    • The autumn kingdom of larches
    • Old growth forests of Canada
    • Dolomites, the European rockies
    • Mountains lakes
  • Français
  • About

    Hiking, photography, wild camping, travels, van… Here are all the subjects that we be broaching here on Awaiting Outdoors. Hope you will enjoy it !

  • Tags

    Alps (14) Arves (2) Behind the lens (3) Big trees (3) British Columbia (3) Canada (3) Car gear (1) Cerces / Clarée / Thabor (2) Configuration (4) Difficult (1) Dolomites (5) Easy (3) Ecrins (2) Forest (3) France (9) Gallery (1) Grandes Rousses (2) Iceland (1) Italy (5) Mountain (14) Normal (1) Renault Trafic (4) USA (1) Van (4) Vancouver Island (3) Vanoise (2)
  • Hiking
  • Travel
  • Gear and tips
  • Behind the lens
  • Photos
    • The autumn kingdom of larches
    • Old growth forests of Canada
    • Dolomites, the European rockies
    • Mountains lakes
  • Français
  • English

Goléon lake

23 December 2019

Second hike and camp of our four-days-trip in the Alps in june 2019 (after the Bramant lake and before the Thabor / Sainte-Marguerite lakes), the Goléon lake was just the perfect place for this kind of trip. It is a wild and vast plateau at more than 2400m high with plenty of walks and off-trails possibilities, and it is reachable after a “regular” ascent of more than 500 meters of elevation gain in less than two hours. A must-do for every wild camp lover ! And if you prefer a warmer night there is also the Goléon refuge not far from the lake so everybody can find a way of spending a night here.

Actually, I saved this location on top on my “family list” to be one of the first mountain camps we will do the four of us when our second child will be ready to hike by himself. He is two right now, and his sister is capable of this kind of hikes since she was three and a half (of course with the help of hour hand in steep parts and a lot of support and resting breaks). So maybe in a year or two.

The hike starts at Valfroide village at the end of the unpaved road. From there it takes two hours – less with no bags – to reach the lake. Valfroide is the starting point for off-season periods only. In summer the road to the village is closed to public and the hike starts at Les Hières, another village located 30 minutes of hiking before Valfroide. The additional part to hike in summer is almost flat so it will had times but won’t ask hikers a huge additional effort.

Golden light on our wild camp
The reflection starts while the sun is getting hidden by the clouds

On the day of june we hiked the Goléon lake trail the weather was really warm with a non refreshing wind that didn’t helped us enjoy the ascent under the sun. As we always do during our “hike and camp trips” we hiked back from Bramant lake in the morning, then drove to Valfroide in the afternoon and started the hike around 4pm when everybody is leaving the area and when the weather is supposed to be cooler.

The hikes starts by an almost flat path that leads through few summer houses and wild flowers fields. After this part it continues on a larger and rocky path where the slope begins slowly. I remember than on that day we were already wet and thirsty on this easy first part of the hike ! Thanks to this warm air and the wind which was in our back and not in front of us. Yes sometimes it happens : you really prefer to hike facing the wind than having it in your back !

On the other side, the Ecrins summits and the famous Meije
The meije on the red light

The second part of the hike is the real ascent. It looks like a wall seen from the bottom and even if it is something classic in the Alps, with a really warm weather with no wind to help us to breath we really feeled that we were climbing a wall ! The more you hike up through the zigzags of the trail the more the Ecrins summits reveal binhind us and it is the best thing with this hike : you have THIS view at every turn and it is just so rewarding of the effort.

The Goléon refuge is the first to appears to hikers because is is located on a small hill that surrounds the lake and the trail end. Sometimes when a refuge is close to a lake it is not so easy to find a nice spot to enjoy the night but here the place is just awesome : there are large fields to pick-up a tent, and the refuge is away from lake shores (but not so far if you want to enjoy a drink or something else).

The sky is getting red for the last minutes
Impressive sunset and reflection over the Goleon lake and the Aiguilles d’Arves

After we set-up our tent we started to do our “photography session” my cousin and I, and I was not really confident about having nice colours that night. Warm or hot weather is really not the best for colors nice moods. Finally we were surprised to see some clouds appearing at the end of the day and making the sky red at the same moment than Ecrins summits were under the last light.

Lucky us we also had a short but impressive sky explosion above the Aiguilles d’Arves and the show of the peaks reflecting in the Goléon lake was just a perfect end for the day. Funny to think that in the morning we were also enjoying a view to the same needles but on the opposite side (see Bramant lake hike).

The colors lasted only three or four minutes. The night is already coming.
The view from the other side of the lake at sunrise.

In the morning I woke up for the sunrise and decided to explore the other side of the lake. From there you can enjoy Ecrins summits reflection in the lake. The image above with my dog is the “classic view” of the place and I have to admit that the Goléon refuge is perfectly located in the area. It gives a sense of scale in the landscape and it is also small in this huge and vast compared to these big mountains.

The view from above while starting an off trail ascent to enjoy the landscape
The first view to the Aiguilles d’Arves (the three needles)

At mid june there were still a lot of snow arround the lake so I decided to go up through some grass slopes to enjoy a different view. It gave me the opportunity to see the valley behind the lake from above… and what a view ! It seems that through Le Serret des Monts and the Replat d’Amont there is a path that leads to the Aiguilles d’Arves : I will explore it next time in summer when I will go back with the kids, for sure.

My two companions enjoying the silence below me
We’re getting closer to the needles
Everybody enjoy the landscape and the moment
Last shot before going back down : the lake, the refuge and the Ecrins
The trail. The cark park is near the forest at the end of the valley.

As you can imagine after reading all I wrote about this hike and the area around the Goléon lake, it is a “top one” to me. A perfect place to enjoy wild mountain and big views, and a perfect hike to try a night in altitude with kids. We didn’t really experience the refuge but had a drink at its terrace and it looked very nice too. A perfect place in every way.


Information

  • Departure : Valfroide (or Les Hières in summer)
  • Altitudes : 1880m (Vafroide) or 1780m (Les Hières), 2438m (Goléon lake)
  • Elevation gain : 560m (Vafroide) or 660m (Les Hières)
  • Duration : 1h30/2h00 (30 min more from Les Hières)
  • Date : june 2019
  • Mountain range : Arves
  • Outside any park

Map

0 0 votes
Article Rating
AlpsArvesFranceMountain
Share

Hiking

matthieu

You might also like

American Rockies
17 May 2022
Ouillon mount and Guichard lake
3 February 2022
Behind the lens #3 – Autumn splendor
27 January 2022
Subscribe
Connect with
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
Notify of
guest
Connect with
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
  • Languages available

    • FrançaisFrançais
    • EnglishEnglish
  • Instagram


  • Also on Awaiting Outdoors

    • Lauzon lake (and Blue lake)

      Lauzon lake (and Blue lake)

      Located at the end of the enchanted valley of Valgaudemar, Lauzon lake …
    • Renault Trafic configuration for a family of 4 – Part 1/3

      Renault Trafic configuration for a family of 4 – Part 1/3

      We bought our van in autumn 2017. Having a van was a …
    • Giants cedars of Canoe Creek

      Giants cedars of Canoe Creek

      After our enchanting visit to the Koksilah River Ancient River Forest we …
    • Maps.me : free offline phone GPS

      Maps.me : free offline phone GPS

      This february we spent two weeks travelling accross western Canada : a …
    • Réou d’Arsine

      Réou d’Arsine

      Réou d’Arsine… A hike and a night from autumn 2014 from which …


  • Tags

    Alps (14) Arves (2) Behind the lens (3) Big trees (3) British Columbia (3) Canada (3) Car gear (1) Cerces / Clarée / Thabor (2) Configuration (4) Difficult (1) Dolomites (5) Easy (3) Ecrins (2) Forest (3) France (9) Gallery (1) Grandes Rousses (2) Iceland (1) Italy (5) Mountain (14) Normal (1) Renault Trafic (4) USA (1) Van (4) Vancouver Island (3) Vanoise (2)
  • Awaiting Outdoors

    • About
    • Contact
    • Photos
  • Mountains ranges

    • Arves
    • Dolomites
    • Ecrins
    • Grandes Rousses
    • Vanoise

© Copyright Awaiting Outdoors

wpDiscuz