Hiking in the Jura

Posted by CJ -

 

So a few days ago it was a nice Sunday in Geneva and what to do? Let’s go hiking!

 

Since the first time we flew into Geneva and every day from my office I look at the Jura Mountains. These are the mountains just across the border in France and are very pretty. They are covered in pine trees till they get too high, and then they are barren grass and cliffs.

 

It’s amazing we have been here 1.5 years and we have never been over to hike or ski on them. But that is because the Swiss Alps are on the other side and they are a wow factor as you have seen from other blog posts.

 

To put this in perspective the Jura highest point is 5,600 feet which would put it among the top 20 in terms of height in the NC mountains, still not as pretty as the Blue Ridge though.

 

After a quick 40 minute ride from our flat we arrived at the parking lot for the ski area and took the tram car to the top.

 

From there we set off on a hike across from one peak to the next, the fun part is that the ridgeline drops and then rise again, fun if you want a lot of down hill and then up hill, it’s like a roller coaster.

The view of Geneva and the Lake was just ok as there were some clouds in the way. However if you look closely you can see the famous water jet coming out of the lake. (it's that while spike where the lake juts into the land...)

The pictures don’t do this mountain justice it is much steeper than it looks, and the rock cliffs are very impressive.

 

After lunch at the highest peak we made our way back and decided to hike all the way back including down the ski slope.

It was a great afternoon and nice to have a mountain so close to go for a fun Sunday hike on.