La Pesse, 15-17 April 2017

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After skiing in the Alps, we drove to Geneva and spent 3 days in the Jura mountains. We were joined by Lyuba who came from Strasbourg. We met in a town of Bellegrade-sul-Valserine and went to explore the surroundings.

The red, blue and black lines show our adventures in the first, second and third days, respectively. The "P" icon shows parking lots, and here you can find our tracks to Perte de la Valserine, les Bouchoux, Casc. du Moulin, la Madone, Lac de Nantua, Grotte de Lordon, Pont des Pierres, Casc. des Étrés, Casc. du Brion. Shift-click on the track link will open it in nakarte.me.

Day one

First waterfall on the Valserine.

We continued up Valserine and got to a place where the river flows in a deep crevassed canyon.


Lyuba at the bottom of the canyon.	Cimbling out of the canyon could be a challenging task.

Further up the river becomes wide again. This year, the water level was low, but one can imaging how wild this place is in a rainy season.

Wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana).


A narrow place in the canyon.	Heart-leaved globe daisy (Globularia cordifolia).

The wood around the river is all covered in moss, like in a fairy tale.

There is probably so much moss because of high humidity and warm temperature.

We eventually found the Bramabœuf cave. We really loved it.

We went about 20 m into the cave but then it got narrower and we turned back.

Day two

We booked accommodation in a small village called La Pesse. In winter, this place is popular with cross-country skiers, in the Summer - with hikers. In April, there are very few people here.

It was drizzly and cold in the morning, but we hoped to get some sunshine later on.

We are at the top of a hill, next to a large cross which in good weather can be seen from all surrounding villages.

The sun came out and the fog started lifting.

We can now see the villages at the bottom of the hill, even some sun rays.

The village of les Bouchoux, where we eventually descended.


A web-coated tree.	We were next going to visit du Moulin waterfull.

En route to the waterfall, we stopped by a Madonna statue, with a great view of the valley and the rocks we walked by earlier.

By the Madonna statue. We next drove to the Nantua lake.

At thar car park, we accidentally noticed long lines of caterpillars, which were simultaneously moving in one direction with a decent speed.

The caterpillars live in the pine trees.

The path went up on top of the cliffs above the lake, and went along the cliff edge. The sun came out, it got warm.

The Nantua lake. The cliffs are quite impressive.


A little scrambling...	We met some people with very friendly dogs.

A Nantua Sphinx.

The racks between the rocks, jus like Thingvellir in Iceland.


Robust marsh orchid (Dactylorhiza elata).	Dog's-tooth-violet (Erythronium dens-canis).

Garland flower (Daphne cneorum).

We descended into the town of Nantua. It looks empy and deserted. Here are window shutters on one of the houses.

A bas-relief on a door.

We stopped by the Sylans lake. In the XIX century, this was a busy ice harvesting site. Now only some remains of the buildings are left.

Day three

Pont des Pierres on on the Valserine river.

We took a path along the Valserine gorges.

Bracken and moss.

We spotted a large (ca. 25 cm long), bright lizard and even managed to take a picture.

Throwing pebbles in the river.

A very nice, secluded place.

We reached a cave, our destination.

No bats but plenty of spiders.

In the beginning of the XX century, this was a tramway. The tram line connected Bellegarde-sur-Valserine, Lancrans, Confort, Montanges, Champfromier and Chezery-Forens, altogether around 20 km. We even saw a remaining tram stop. The tramway is now a popular bridleway.

Valserine valley from Pont des Pierres.