The mountain is located close to the main chain of the Alps where it marks the Dora-Durance water divide, on the eastern side of it.

Between 1898 and 1910 Italian troops built an artillery battery on the summit that pointed towards France, particularly at the town of Briançon, and then passed to Italy over the Col de Montgenèvre.

Each emplacement was manned by seven men, who were protected by a relatively lightly armoured dome because the battery was thought to be out of reach of conventional artillery.

The French army installed four 280mm mortars dating back to the battle of Verdun in the First World War, divided into two batteries and camouflaged: one on Eyrette, the other at Poët Morand below Fort de l'Infernet.

When Italy entered the Second World War, they bombarded the French positions around Briançon on 20 June, but Italian troops did not advance.

At the end of the war France acquired the mountain, and the border was moved to the edge of the Italian village of Claviere.

On the ridge between the summit and the nearby are outcrops of mica schist with quartz, crystalline limestones and porphyritic rocks.