Dwight Peck's personal website

Mont Tendre in June

It's been a fabulous winter for snowshoers here in the Jura mountains, but now summer's here . . . or is it?


You may not find this terribly 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.

21 June (5:04 a.m.) will be the summer solstice. We're getting ready.

It's 2 June 2013, and we're out to enjoy the new summer's weather with a walk up Mont Tendre.

But we're going to have to be flexible in our expectations.

The old path from the pastures of Petit Cunay, well trod over the winter months

The sun is preparing to burst out in its summer effulgence.

We're passing around the top end of the Creux d'Enfer de Druchaux, which right now must be hellish with its half-hidden limestone caves and holes.

We're out of the forest and hastening up onto Mont Tendre at its southwestern end, near La Pivette.

It's been a rough winter.

Actually, we're looking for mountain flowers -- we've got 10 species so far. (When here with a scientist colleague on the same date in 2005, she counted about 30.)

A large gully on the normal path -- we can usually expect big cornices here.

As foreseen. We'll go around.

Kristin leads us downhill a ways.

Big cornices

Very big cornices

Back on the trail, we sense that the sun is trying to break through with an intense glare that may require a strong sunblocking product.

More big cornices

The summit is in sight, sort of

More big cornices, and a ladder of uphill ski tracks on the right

Circumventing cornices

Still more cornices

Mont Tendre (1679m)

A look back before we make a loop back towards the car

Mont Tendre from the France-facing side of the ridge

Down on the international hiking path the Chemin des Crêtes -- the Chalet de Yens (1579m)

Very wet snow

The little cabane du Servan (1555m)

Incomplete spring melt-off (1530m)

Brief troubles finding the path back up through the forest

Up the well-trod Chemin des Crêtes through the jumbly forest called Pierre à Coutiau

A long path

A checkpoint

Circumventing again

It's been a rough winter.

The tree tore half the hillside out when it came down.

Uphill, but halfway to the top

It's a fairly long path.

Nearly to the top

The top of the little hill (1609m), expecting to run into the Swiss Alpine Club Cabane du Cunay (1588m) just over the rise, but lo! here are the new Swiss back-up radar installations for Geneva's Cointrin airport.

They were meant to be built on top of Mont Tendre, but such was the popular outcry that the authorities relented and stuck them up here instead.

With a refurbishment of the old facility that's always been here

A short walk remains down the Route des Montagnes to the car (1547m) at the top of the pastures of Petit Cunay.

The sun should be bursting forth any minute now.

More photos of Mont Tendre
First snowy hike of 2013/2014 (3 November)
Through fog and snow to Mont Tendre, June 2013
Sun and fun on Mont Tendre on skis, March 2005
More photos of Mont Tendre in the winter of 2003-2004
More photos of Mont Tendre, 2001-2002
Snowshoeing on Mont Tendre, January 2000
Introductory photos of Mont Tendre in 1997
Some summer photos of Mont Tendre for a change, July 2002
Trees of Mont Tendre

GO!


Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, . All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 6 June 2013.


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