Tête de l'Homme, Mountain peak in Cottian Alps, France and Italy.
Tête de l'Homme is a 3,202 m summit on the main Alpine watershed between Italy's Valle Maira and France's Ubaye valley, in the Chambeyron group. Its bare tan rock rises to a jagged, slightly darker top, with vertical ribs, ledges and gullies; the main face drops toward a lower left ridge and a broader right shoulder, and pale scree collects at the base. It is made of limestone schists, slates and marble-like limestones.
Tête de l'Homme lies on the main Alpine watershed between Italy's Valle Maira and France's Ubaye valley, with the summit shared by Acceglio and Saint-Paul-sur-Ubaye. The border ridge runs from the Testa del Vallonetto down to the Col de Marinet (2785 m) and up to the peak, then on to the Pas de Terre Nere (3035 m). A secondary ridge branches west toward the Aiguille de Chambeyron. The mountain belongs to the Briançonnais complex, built of Eocene to Upper Cretaceous calcareous and slaty schists and marble limestones.
The name is simply French for "head of man", given for the peak's shape as seen from the valleys. The summit sits on the main Alpine watershed between the Maira valley on the Italian side, in Acceglio municipality, and the Ubaye valley in France, in Saint-Paul-sur-Ubaye. Italian climbers approach from the Chiappera hamlet, the French from Fouillouse.
Reaching this summit requires mountaineering skills and proper equipment, as climbing routes are technical and exposed. The best climbing season runs from June through September when snow coverage is minimal and weather conditions are most stable.
The mountain belongs to the Briançonnais geological complex and consists of calcareous and slaty schists together with marble limestones dating from the Upper Cretaceous to the Lower Eocene. The normal route climbs the south-west face from the French side, graded F without snow and F+ when the final gully holds snow.
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