Snowshoeing in the Jura Mountains

Friday I went to a "Bal des Rois", the post-Christmas celebration of the wise men's arrival to give their gifts to baby Jesus. Everyone eats the "galette de roi" (king cake, for all you Mardi Gras fans) that has a trinket hidden somewhere inside. Whoever gets the trinket is the queen (or king) for the day and gets to chose their king (or queen). Unfortunately for me, even after chomping through 5 promising pieces, I still hadn't found one of those sneaky trinkets! Oh well. Even more unfortunate was that I partied just a few minutes too late to catch the last bus home. Err! Had I only found that blasted trinket and gotten the accompanying crown, I could have easily made a decree that all BMW taxis would be obliged to give free rides to royalty between midnight and 1am that night. Instead, I got to walk 2.5 km through some dense fog. At least I had plenty of energy from all that cake! : )

Saturday morning I caught one of the first buses from Veyrier-Douane and went to Gare Cornavin. I was a few minutes early for the train to Coppet, so I went back down the Rue des Alpes to the lakefront to admire Geneva and its environs in the morning light. I caught the train and then watched the sunrise from the station in Coppet.

My friend Sylvain picked me up in his Aunt's Twingo (a fun little French car) to go for a warm-up hike up a prominent hill just outside of Divonne while we waited for his uncle Jacques. From the summit we could see the Juras and Sylvain pointed out to me where we'd be going (we drove up the road on the right and on the backside of the mountain hiked from about where the tower is to about the center of the picture).

We hiked back down, drove to his Aunt and Uncle's place and then Jacques drove us on up through Gex to the ski lodge Faucille where we rented our snowshoes. We struck out through the brightly-clad skier crowd and then on up into the wilderness. The alpine forest was beautiful. After crunching along the top of the snow for some time, we came out of the forest and went up to the ridge. From there we could look out over the valley and beyond to the Alps. If you want to get a more precise though bland conception of where we were geographically, here's a map.


Sylvain and Jacques looking out from atop the Juras.

We took a little break on a patch of dry grass and had some clementine oranges and fig cookies. Then we continued along the ridge and further away from the ski station. Looking the opposite direction, I saw a few hamlets and the mountain forests. Apparently much of this area is pasture for cows in the warmer months.

The weather was idyllic: cloudless blue skies, effulgent sun, and an occassional gust of cool clean air to fill our lungs. While waiting for me to take another picture, Sylvain and his uncle counted the jet-plane contrails in the clear sky.

A bit further, at another abandoned farm, we turned around and headed back to the ski lodge. Jacques cruised ahead (he does this kind of thing all the time and is in excellent shape) and Sylvain and I trudged back chatting about our classes, European football, American music, and how language limits our thoughts. What a great day!

I took the train and then the bus home, had a bite to eat, and then made a courageous effort to attack my readings for class. After dueling with the same paragraph for the umpteenth time, I finally surrendered to fatigue and promptly conked out on my bed.