SnowSlider – Blogging From the mountains by ise

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.

It was pretty cold this morning and we were a little undecided where to go, we’d been at Sorens yesterday and had an idea to return there and do one of the longer loipes but I’d been wanting to go to the Les Rasses in the Jura. Looking at the webcam first thing though it looked pretty bleak but an hour later I’d convinced myself it looked OK and the cloud was breaking so we went to Les Rasses.

It’s just near Sainte Croix which is on the French-Swiss border and the is the typical Jura scenery, forest and rolling nordic terrain. You can ski all the way from Les Rasses to near Creux de Van, a large limestone cirque, but it was a bit farther than Julie wanted to go.

The sun did nearly come out, certainly it got warmer, when we left the car it was around -8′c and it was hovering around freezing when we got back. The odd patch of weak sunlight made some atmospheric effects which are hard to get on camera but these aren’t too bad.

I did some nordic skiing over here a few weeks and it was obvious that the snowshoeing would be pretty good so when I needed somewhere to go today this seemed an obvious idea. We set off using one of the winter paths but this meandered a bit too much so we took a direct route in the forest to get to the Bison Ranch. We’d planned to get some lunch here which was fine but the menu was a bit limited. soup or bison sausage only, fortunately both turned out to be great with some vin-chaud and home made bread.

It’s holiday time in mainstream locations but places like Nods are pretty much untouched by holiday traffic so we were the only people we saw on snowshoes all day with the exception of a couple who turned up at the restaurant at the same time.

I parked the car around at Les Hôpitaux-Vieux and nearly stayed in it. It had been cold at home but there seemed the chance of some sun, by the time I’d crossed the border into France and got to Les Hôpitaux-Vieux that chance of sun had vanished and it was snowing heavily and very cold. My first thought was to do a short 3 or 4 km circuit two or three times and take advantage of the hot flask and sandwiches in the car. But, once you’re moving it’s not so bad and I headed for Les Hôpitaux-Neufs instead picking up a section of the GTJ (Grande Traversée du Jura) I’d not skied before.

On the loipe it was perfectly quiet and I saw half a dozen people while I was out, by the time I’d got to Métabief it looked busy, it’s a small downhill station but it’s holiday time and it was pretty busy, some good conditions bringing out the crowds. That’s where the two photo’s above were taken, where I’d parked I was one of two cars in a large empty car park, nordic is just perfect at busy times without the crowds at the alpine centres.