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The Grandes Rousses crystalline massif is not very extensive and forms a high relief bordered by sedimentary troughs to the east and west. This strongly uplifted Hercynian block is also highly fractured, with two levels on its western flank separated by a 400-m-high fault scarp. Each of these levels is picked out by a line of lakes (Lac Blanc, Lac du Milieu and Lac de la Fare at 2500m/8200ft, and Lac Besson, Lac Faucille and Lac Carrelet at 2000m/6500ft).

The continually high elevation (3468m/11,378ft at Pic de l'Etendard and rarely less than 3200m/10,500ft along the crest) and high humidity explains why it is here that the first glaciers are encountered when coming from the west.

The Quaternary glaciers have shaped a topography that is essentially due to the tectonics; the still-active cirque glaciers have sculpted a fine central ridge.

Like all the Oisans, this is an area of high mountains. The massif has the typical Alpine zoning between the middle elevation of 900 metres/2952ft and the 3468 metres/11378ft of Pic de l'Étendard: the montane zone, with beeches, firs and Scots pines; the sub-Alpine zone, with spruce; the Alpine zone, with grasslands above 2200m/7217ft; and the nival or snow zone, with the first glaciers when coming from the west at elevations above 2400m/7874ft.

The massif is generally considered to be an extension and an integral part of the Oisans massif , including because of the spectacular natural motifs, such as the rounded dome-like summits, the glaciers, the perennial snow, the streams, the natural lakes, so striking in comparison with artificial reservoirs, the rocky scree, the high passes like the Croix de Fer and Glandon, and the Alpine meadows.

Other features come into play alongside these, in line with the harsh, often tormented and austere character of these grandiose landscapes, including mountain roads that seem to be slashed into the rock, often clinging to sheer drops and climbing through twists and turns. D 211 is emblematic, with countless hairpin turns that have caused it to be enscribed into the legends of the Tour de France.

There are winter sports resorts as well, including l'Alpe d'Huez an emblematic world-famous resort that, together with the nearby seven villages of Villard-Reculas, La Garde, Oz, Allemond, and Clavanset, and the more recent two satellite resorts of Vauljany and Auris-en-Oisans, presides over one of the most impressive ski sites in the Alps. Auris-en-Oisans, built in a small aerial valley, has grown and become a small mineral town much like the surrounding landscape, amidst an "empire of snow", one of the largest summer skiing areas in France.

Along with the Deux Alpes, L'Alpe d'Huezis the most typical of the second-generation resorts, called new resorts which appeared alongside the boom in skiing during the years just after World War II, and which was built from scratch at the Alpine level, unlike the traditional resorts that grew up around a pre-existing village core. The boom in mass tourism thus led to a new form of conquest of the high mountains, where "promoters' dreams and the sublime character of the mountains carried on a pitiless battle" (Libération, 29/Dec/98).

In comparison with the traditional first-generation resorts, these two second-generation resorts were described as "sauvage" ("wild"), not only because of the setting in which they were built, but also because they underwent spontaneous, sometime anarchic growth, at joint private and public initiative, and sometimes at great haste in order to meet the pace of the growth in demand. The resulting landscape is all the more heterogeneous, as it does not have all the advantages of the picturesque setting of the traditional resorts at lower elevations. In addition, problems related to automobile traffic and the situation of the roads sometimes lead to deficiencies in functionality. The new "functional" resorts like Chamrousse in southern Belledonne are supposed to remedy these problems.