Jogging in the Jura: an overview

Jogging in the Jura:  An overview

Summary

Easily accesible from the major cities on the Western Swiss Plateau, Geneva, Yverdon, Neuchatel and Biel/Bienne, the Jura mountains form a natural border between Switzerland and France.  I spent the last year living in Lausanne, and over the course of 6 months or so managed to run the southern half (or 2/3) of Jura mountain range in Switzerland considerably.  If you are looking for information on a distance hike or run in this area I hope you might find this post useful.  My intention is to give you some good quick ideas about quality distance routes in the Jura:  which features are really nice, and which parts are forgettable.  

 

I’ve organized this post as follows:  a short summary (and link to) of specific routes, from South to North, with recommendations for shorter hikes or longer distance connections where appropriate.  I’ve also made notes about nice climbs, routes which traverse the crest,  and routes I haven’t done but would add next.  The route information given below and in linked posts is skewed towards getting to/from trailheads from Lausanne via the train, but people with cars and those who live or vacation in Geneva, Nyon, Yverdon-les-Bains and Neuchatel will also find useful information here.

When to go

The best time to head to Jura crest is just after the snow melts and just before the cows go up.  In 2011 this was April/May.  The weather on the crest can be downright nasty in winter (La Brevine currently holds the record for coldest temperature in CH).  Don't go up in January unless you are particulary desperate. The smell and ubiquity of the cows can be even nastier.  Think crocus.  If you see crocus out in numbers on the crest it’s the right time.  

  

Additional resources

You can print maps from here.  Make sure to check the sections and local trail tab.  Train schedules here.  In terms of additional equipment … It’s Switzerland, you’ll never be more than 10 minutes away from a barn, house or restaurant, and all the trails are really well signed. 

An overview of the routes described below (click to enlarge)  

An overview of the routes described below (click to enlarge)

Specific sections:  South to North

La Dole from St Cergue (post)

La Dole is a worthy day trip from Geneva, and St Cergue always seems to have a nice happy vibe to it.  The radar ball on top and shear rock face near the summit of La Dole make it easy to spot even from Lausanne.  There is a very nice unforested section near the top, but the route to/from St Cergue is characterized by cow pastures and roads.  It’s lacking in quality single track, but the climb up from La Rippe near the CH/FR border is not.  I would do that again.  Be sure to take in the amazing rock fences just to the south of the summit of La Dole.  I never did get a chance to head south from here.  It looks mostly unforested, and I believe Crete de la Niege is the highest peak in the Jura.  The only problem is that it most likely has to be done as an out and back, since navigating public transportation across the CH/FR border would be a hassle.

  

St Cergue, Col de Marchairuz, Crete de la Nueve, Mont de Biere, Mt Tendre (post)

Mt Tendre is a really nice destination from the Col de Marchairuz.  Actually, in between the two, the Monts de Biere area is one of my favorite places in the Jura, make sure to summit these minor peaks on your way to or from Mt Tendre.  The Southern half of this route, from St Cergue to Col de Marchairuz including Crete de la Neuve, is largely forested, fairly subdued, and not recommended compared to the Northern half of the route from Col de Marchairuz to Mt Tendre.  I climbed up to the crest from the Swiss plateau starting from Biere and starting from Montricher.  They were both nice, but the climb from Biere skirts a shooting range and includes more paved roads.     

Mt Tendre, Col de Mollendruz, Haut de Mollendruz, and Dent de Vaulion to Vallorbe (post)

North of Mt Tendre the Jura Crest trail returns to more dirt double track.  It’s not bad, not great, just sort of ‘meh’.  Things can get a bit confusing around the Col/Haut de Mollendruz, but the climb up the Dent de Vaulion (from Le Pont area) is a true Jura classic.  It’s mostly unforested and the views of Lac de Joux are unparalleled.  

  

Dent de Vaulion and Mont d’Or from Vallorbe (post)

In contrast to the Southern approach from Le Pont, the northern approach to the summit of Dent de Vaulion from Vallorbe is controversial at best.  The lower half is a maze of logging roads, and on the single track quality on the upper half of the climb is poor.  It’s mostly forested and sometimes feels like game trails, despite the ubiquitous blazes and rocks and trees.  The climb up Mont d’Or from Vallorbe also suffers from a surfeit of paved roads on the lower half, but gradually opens up to pasture near the summit.   Near the top is a metal can painted with Swiss colors on one side and French colors on the other.  How cool is it to cross this border on foot?

Vallorbe to Le Suchet, Mont de Baulmes, Ste Croixe and Le Chasseron (post)

The approach of Le Suchet from Vallorbe is long, boring and mostly paved.  If I wasn’t out the connect all my footsteps I wouldn’t have done this, and having done it wouldn’t do it again.  Vallorbe is a really quick train ride from Lausanne though.  Anyways the summit of Le Suchet is nice, and the area around Mont de Baulmes into Ste Croixe is one of the nicest parts of the Jura Crest.  I’ve gone up Mont de Baulmes on the Aigulles ridge itself (just OK, not actual singletrack so much as a suggested unconstructed route) and on the high quality singletrack which climbs up and over the ridge halfway down.  Take the latter, from there there are multiple ways to drop into Sainte-Croix, all of which are pretty nice.  Sainte-Croixe also has a nice atmosphere to it.  I like it there.

The climb North up Le Chasseron from Sainte-Croix is a classic.  There is a huge section of this trail which is unforested on the ridge.  You’ll love it.

  

Mt Aubert area (post) 

While the first few miles North of Le Chasseron are largely unforested and make for nice running, north of this the Crest dips down and the becomes a jumble of paved and dirt roads with no clear direction.  It’s really easy to get lost around the Mt Aubert area, and not a particularly nice area to be lost in.

Creux de Van to Neuchatel (post)

The switchbacks up to Creux de Van from Noirague are worth your time.  Nicely constructed, well used, and seemingly maintained, there is good reason this climb is so popular.  The Jura crest in this area is incredibly scenic.  Go there.  

I never did make it up to Le Chasseral, Tete de Ran or Mt Racine, but these would have been my next destinations, had I not returned to the US.  Surely I've missed quite a few local routes.  If you have suggestions regarding this area please leave them below.

 

Mt St Helens circumnavigation / Loowit Trail

There are giant volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest.  You can run around them.  Since Volcanorunning has a pretty good writeup of the logisitics and I'm feeling lazy, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Mt St Helens circumnavigation on the Loowit trail - 10/15/2011.  Garmin says ~31 miles, but it runs a lot slower.  I think we (me an my wife April,  Frank and Ken were a bit faster) managed about 11 hrs.  It's a fantastic run, very accessible from PDX for out of town runners as well.  This one was awesome!

Frank and Ken navigate the lava rocks at dawn.  We started at 6 am with an hour climb through the forest by headlamp. 

A new day dawns in the WA Cascades

The first part of the trail (clockwise circumnavigation on the Loowit trail) alternated between islands of firs and large coarse lava rocks

Is Mt St Helens still on the right?  Then you are not lost.

April, Frank, and Ken navigate the lava fields.

Climbing out of the Toutle River valley was one of the highlights

Toutle River valley

This years fresh crop of Douglas Fir cones on the branch.  Really makes me miss the fresh hop beers of the PNW

April climbs up out of the Toutle Valley

The money shot.  Mt St Helens from the North.  The 1980 eruption came down this way.  Here is a nice aerial view.

April in the blast zone

Up and over Windy ridge and off the Plains of Abraham

April smells the barn

Yep.  You can run around Adams too.

The last portion of the route (4 to 5 o'clock) goes up and down a series of deep lava valleys.

More Adams

Aid Station on the way back in. 

Moleson and Me pt III: Leaving Switzerland

My time in Lausanne Switzerland is drawing to an end.  As I’m happily moving on to another postdoc in Southern Indiana I find myself trying to wrap my head around the running experiences I’ve had in the past year.  Thus it that for my final weekend mountain run I found myself on top of Moleson, heartrate over 190, gasping for breath, exalted in the beauty of what I’ve decided to be my favorite local mountain.

Moleson and Me

The places we run carry connotations defined by the emotions we bring to them, and experiences we've had on previous trips.  I spent the spring training for the Zurich marathon.  I probably only missed 2-3 weekends in the mountains in favor of long road runs along Lake Geneva but I’m actually not a road runner at all.  In April the mountains finally opened up and I summitted Moleson with the promise of a long and prosperous summer mountain running in the air.  My body was slowly awakening from the slumber of a cold and dark winter spent between a far too small studio apartment and a packed subway train.  I enjoyed to ridgeline so much I returned a week later to show my friends. 

The classic Moleson Teyschaux ridgline

Given that I had only 1 year to explore my surroundings I spent the rest of summer weekends all over Western Switzerland (Suisse Romande, the French speaking part).  The Jura’s, which form the border with France, the Valaisan alps, Cornettes de Bise, the Val Ferret, Les Diablerets, Rochers de Naye, Col de Lys, Pic Chaussy, the list goes on an on.  Ultimately it’s hard to not draw a comparison between the Swiss mountains and the mountains of my home, the American West.  The two could not possibly be more different in terms of our (humans) relationship with them.

Approaching Moleson from the North

I never found anything remotely resembling a wilderness in Switzerland.  In fact many of mountains here have restaurants at the top, which can be reached in the comfort of a gondola.  There are cows EVERYWHERE.  Essentially the entire crest of the Jura mountain range is cow pasture.  I grew up on the Pacific Crest Trail.  Not literally, but actually, yes literally.  I hiked days upon end entering and exiting one wilderness after another.  Wilderness is the most important idea in the world, not tax cuts for the rich, not medical care reform, food aid to Africa, Saudia Arabian women behind the wheel of a car, Greece’s financial obligations to the EU, or the rise of China. 

Descending Moleson's eastern switchbacks

The concept was invented in America, literally.  In the 1800s, it was essentially invented as an idea and then a state institution by a Scottish immigrant named John Muir to whom we owe so much of our legacy.  The American Wilderness Act was passed into law in 1964.  It reads

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Amazing.  In the American West it’s almost by default that we accept the idea of a wilderness.  It’s our legacy.  In Switzerland, at least as far as I can tell after an entire year’s worth of weekends running in the mountains, wilderness does not exist at all whatsoever.  One is never more than a kilometer from the nearest restaurant, furnicular train, cow, or electric fence.  Nature has ceased to exist outside of the scope of human economic enterprise.  The mountain meadows have been grazed so long that ‘pasture’ has simply replaced the word and meaning of ‘meadow’.  The physical effects are obvious and ubiquitous.  But what works beneath the surface is insidious and dangerous.  Nature has taken on a different meaning for many Europeans.  On a continent where the idea of wilderness has for the most part been lost for many many generations, ‘nature’ has come to encompass agricultural and pastoral activity, simply because there is no other alternative.  I could go on about this forever, but actually I prefer to think instead about what and incredible idea we have back in the American West.  Wilderness.  A healthy relationship with our mountains.  Thank you John Muir.   

The SouthEastern approach from Les Paccots

Garmin says 3900 ft of vertical in 13.8 miles.  The final pitch up to Teyschaux's summit (red track in front left) was at 42% grade (1180 ft in 0.53 mi).

The detritus of years worth of weekends spent in the mountains of Western Switzerland.