I’d skied over here doing the Traversée du Jura Suisse but dropped off the ridge in poor weather. I wanted to go back and ski the section in the ridge so I parked at col du Mollendruz where there were only two other cars and set out along the ridge. It’s a around a 27km loop from col du Mollendruz to Pré de Denens and back and I didn’t really see anyone until near Pré de Denens where a group of school children were coming the other way.

After turning round at Pré de Denens I quickly caught the children up as the section was a steady climb with a couple of flat sections. Obviously I was stopping to take a couple of photographs which took a few minutes so I was later surprised on a descent to be passed by a couple of the faster children but they were dropping into tucks for speed.

And (above) I catch the children up again, my long legs and adult power giving me a huge speed advantage until some of them pass me again on the descent where youthful recklessness has the advantage.

Some views over the plateau to the main alpine chain, the forecast was poor weather in the morning and sun int he afternoon and that’s exactly what happened. In fact it steadily improved so it was fine weather by the time I got home.

Just a couple of photo’s from the the fourth day of the Jura Traverse. Weather was extremely poor and it just wasn’t a great day to get photo’s.

I’d spent the night at the Col du Marchairuz in the hotel there and planned to ski to Le Pont at the end of the Lac de Joux, I’d a couple of ideas for a route, ether to ski to the Col du Mollendruz or down to the lake. So I skied the ridge line to the Chalet Du Grand Essert and then decided to descend to the lake. I’d decided that the ridge wasn’t going to alter much, it hadn’t been tracked so it was hard work in places and I’d always got a descent to Le Pont off marked trails anyway.

As it was the track down to Les Bioux wasn’t prepared either and varied from unpleasant and crusted snow to packed and fairly easy. There’s supposed to be some sort of track around the lake, this wasn’t prepared either but it was easy enough skiing. Had the ice been stronger it would have been possible to ski on the lake which would have been a novelty.

The Jura mountains run down part of the border of France and Switzerland, they form the watershed of, and divide, the Rhine and Rhone rivers. The word Jura is old from Celtic roots and means forest so you have the forest mountains. Another interesting thing about them is they control our weather in the plateau area a bit, air tends to condense on the Jura giving us a blanket of fog in the plateua region. Some of these photo’s show this really neatly with a sea of fog between the Jura the main alpine chain.

Col du Mollendruz is a nordic ski area near the Lac du Joux which was frozen as I drove past this morning. Because views were going to be so good I took a long loipe along the ridge to enjoy the views. Really Nordic skis are the best way to travel in this area, snowshoes are fine but on the rolling terrain you can move much quicker on nordic skis, there’s also something quite addictive about the movement, something to do with the exercise and endorphins coupled with the scenery maybe?

I probably got more photo’s today than I can use really, so this is a tiny selection.

The frozen lake above is actually Lac de Joux at Le Pont, I’d driven past on my way to the Col de Mollendruz and thought it was worth a photograph.

Most of these are taken looking towards the main alpine chain over the fog filled plateu, it was just the best view all day and the loipe took a great tour along the ridge to enjoy it.

I’ve been experimenting a bit trying to capture the snow on trees recently and I’m fairly pleased with some of the results, I particularly like the effect you can get using the sun to backlight it.