Mount Prorel, Mountain summit in Hautes-Alpes, France

Mount Prorel is a summit in the French Alps, on the right bank of the Guisane and Durance, west of Briançon in the Hautes-Alpes. It reaches 2,566 metres and consists mainly of limestone and coal-bearing rock of the western Briançonnais anticlinorium. Its upper slopes are dark brown-gray rock and snow, with a jagged outcrop near the top and a band of bare trees below.

The summit gave its name to the family of writer and politician Alain Prorel, as he recounts in his 1998 book Sans racines. His father, Vincent Prorel, was abandoned by his mother in Briançon in 1914, and the hospital doctors decided to name him after the mountain overlooking the town.

The summit gave its name to the family of writer and politician Alain Prorel. In his 1998 book Sans racines, he recounts how his father Vincent, abandoned in Briançon in 1914, was named by hospital doctors after the mountain overlooking the town.

A cable car system links Briançon to the summit in two separate segments, with a stop at Puy-Saint-Pierre village as an intermediate point. You can use the gondola or follow hiking trails to explore the mountain.

The summit is made mainly of Carboniferous coal-bearing rock from the core of the western Briançonnais anticlinorium, with a limestone tendency. The writer and politician Alain Prorel, from the Hautes-Alpes, took his surname from this mountain; in Sans racines (Éd. du Fournel, 1998) he recounts that his father Vincent, abandoned in Briançon in 1914, was given the summit's name by hospital doctors.