Trail Vallée de Joux

We spent a lot of time over the summer exploring the Jura, and in particular the Vallée de Joux. Daniel does much of his training here and we both love the area for its rolling hills, forests and open spaces. On Sunday, Daniel rounded off his trail running season with the Trail Vallée de Joux, a 54km race on some of our favourite hiking routes.

The race started in L'Abbaye before heading up and down to Dent de Vaulion, Col du Mollendruz, Châtel, Montricher, Mont Tendre, Col du Marchairuz and ending in Le Sentier. It was a fast race and Daniel did brilliantly to finish third overall - his second podium finish in as many weeks!

It was a beautiful time of year to be in the Jura as the landscape is a riot of rich Autumn colours, providing beautiful pictures and great backdrops for action shots of Daniel!

Daniel at Col du Mollendruz, an hour after the start 

The road down from Mont Tendre

Arriving at Col du Marchairuz

The finish was in Le Sentier

Daniel smiling as he heads down the finishing straight

Daniel on the podium!!!

Col du Marchairuz - Mont Tendre (5: Jura)

We've spent a lot time exploring the Jura Mountains in our canton. As we've said before, these mountains stretch from Dielsdorf near Zurich to Nyon in Switzerland, but also extend into France and Germany. It is possible to traverse the Swiss portion of this mountain range on the 310km Jura Crest Trail, the most famous national long-distance trail. The Chemin des Crêtes du Jura or Jura Höhenweg trail is marked with the number 5 route.

The Jura Crest Trail

We've done little bits of this trail (St Cergue; Vallée du Joux; Mont Tendre) and today we completed another 8km section of rolling Jura hills. We followed the number 5 sign from Col du Marchairuz up to the summit at Mont Tendre. More than 60,000km of marked trails criss-cross Switzerland (compared to 72,000km of marked roads!). The Swiss Hiking Foundation is responsible for organising and maintaining the yellow signalisation for the seven national routes, 60 regional trails, and 228 local hikes throughout the country.

The rolling hills of the Jura

No chance of getting lost! We were following the number 5 signs.

Our route today.

Mont Tendre

Mont Tendre has the distinction of being the highest, most-isolated peak in the canton of Vaud. (We think this means that there are higher peaks which are less isolated...). It is part of the Jura Mountain Range, which stretches from Zurich into France, and it lies on one of Daniel's favourite running routes.

We drove up close to the peak on Sunday and then walked the last couple of kilometres to the highest point. The trails are grassy with rolling hills and an abundance of wild flowers and butterflies. It was a cloudy day when we were up there, but the views are spectacular. On the one side you can see across Lake Geneva to the French Alps, and on the other side you can look down the valley into a different part of France. It was well worth a visit and we'll definitely be back!

Rolling hills and grassy trails

The peak

The view north

Just beautiful!

SUNNY UPDATE (2 August 2015)

We've hiked up to Mont Tendre a few times now, but today was my first time when the peak was sunny and not shrouded in cloud! So, here are a few photos from today's hike, with blue skies and the top of Mont Blanc peaking out across the lake. We ran a gauntlet of cows to reach the summit and we saw a fox on the way down :)

Sunny summit

Rolling hills and blue skies

Mont Blanc making an appearance

There were lots of cows at the top. And lots of musical cowbells!

A fox!