Snowshoe hikes for more farm photos, February 2006

Dwight Peck's personal Web site

Winter 2005-2006

Short breaks from poring over the newspapers as the Bushies implode

You may not find this tangibly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

Great snow in early December -- not much since:
A round-up of new farm pix, 4 and 5 February 2006.

We're here (the royal "we") at the Bugnonet-Chaumette winter trailhead (971m) above our hometown of Bassins, and our great scheme for today is to update our Farms of the Jura pages by swinging past a couple of them that have been suffering under the dark fuzziness of pre-digital cameras. Right now we're bound for Le Bugnonet over there on the right. (We've no idea who those young folks are up ahead -- let's let them get ahead a bit.)
The Bassins "Route de Montagne" has a barrier across it at this point, but we've been very badly served by some "skimobiles" ("motoneiges" in French) that, as you see, have got round it and have effectively trashed the roadway right to the top of the mountain. But we're planning to bushwhack straight up the forest anyway, and get lost in the Bois au Ministre and the forest called L'Essert-Chevalier for a while, if we can, in the hope of getting some late afternoon shots of Le Crot.

There's Le Bugnonet (995m). It would sure be nice if the sun would peek out about now.

But no sun today, not here anyway -- the top of the fog is at about 1100m.

Ah, here it is. We've dragged our way straight up through the lovely hard snow and finally found the sun at Le Crot.

This is the farm of Le Crot (1225m) at about 4 p.m., with Mont Sâla (1511m) looming behind. Well, maybe not looming, maybe just settled comfortably in up there.

We're trotting around the east side of Le Crot with a nice view on the horizon: (from left) Mont Pelé (1532m), forested and frequently unfindable amongst the trees; an unnamed middle one (1515m), and Mont Sâla (1511m) on the right. They're about four kilometres away from us now, up on the Jura ridgeline.

We circumambulate the building (we're standing on a pile of forestry logs for this shot from the north), squeezing off digital shots to choose from later, changing the AA batteries from time to time.

And the front, facing out over Lake Geneva to the south.

Whenever we can, we also catch a picture with the name of the farm in it: in this case, Le Crot.

It's well past 4 p.m. and the temperature is plummeting, so if we want to squeeze any more farms in this afternoon we'll have to trot along.

We're leaving Le Crot to cross the Route de Montagne to pick up the Chemin des Crêtes international hiking trail lower down and find Les Frasses.

And here's the farm of Les Frasses (1151m), along the Chemin des Crêtes.

We're actually racing along here because the sun is just going into the tank and we may not make it to the building in time for any good shots.

Just in time -- that's the southeast front of Les Frasses, with the Chemin des Crêtes trail sign on the beam. Now it's nearly 5 p.m., and we haven't a moment to linger.

A trail sign at dusk -- La Dunanche is out on the flat, Les Frasses is back the way we've come. But we're in a hurry now.

There are those skimobile tracks again. People from the city, probably, who typically love their "vroom-vroom". But now we'll bushwhack down through the forest as speedily as may be, as we "feel how swift how secretly / The shadow of the night comes on", mainly really really cold.

"To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night."
And the waterbottle's frozen up again.

On the morrow

We're back the next day, 5 February 2006 -- we were heading for Perroude du Vaud for some updated photographs, but we've spent so long thrashing about in the forest getting up to this point, 1370m at 4 p.m., that we'd better turn a sharp left and follow the Chemin des Crêtes SSW towards Le Planet.

Le Planet sits at 1364m on a kind of promontory overlooking Lake Geneva -- there it is dead centre. There, next to the tree....

There!

A mere 20 minutes later we're huffing and puffing up to the old barn door.

Le Planet, late afternoon, 5 February 2006

Spelt "Le Planey" here, mind you.

But "Le Planet" here. The yellow trail signs with the red marker are distinctive of the Chemin des Crêtes hiking trail, which winds along through the Swiss Jura mountains from Germany to France.

Down we come from Le Planet to Le Crot again, pretty much unchanged since yesterday, in a race with the sun at 5 p.m.

Goodbye, Le Crot. "To feel the always coming on / The always rising of the night." And the water flask has frozen up again.