Farms of the Jura in winter: Prés de Joux

Dwight Peck's farm photos

Farms of the Jura in winter

The Jura mountains run in a southwest-northeast direction along the border between France and Switzerland, from Geneva (Genève) to Basel (Bâle), holding at about 1300-1400 meters altitude (4350-4500 feet), and peaking in the range of 1650 meters (5450 feet). These photos of high alpage farms in winter are mainly from the southwestern end of that range, between the cities of Geneva and Vallorbe.

Prés de Joux

Beautiful Prés de Joux, a bright afternoon, 11 January 2003, at 1107m above Marchissy.

January 2003, before the big snowfalls of the year. The scratched out areas in the snow have been created by wild pigs, the sangliers, looking for stuff to eat, discretely, after dark. Mr Peck has never actually seen a sanglier in the wild (there are some humongous ones in the Zoo de Garenne in Le Vaud), but their "turf wars" on the top layers of meadow grass in the high pastures are everywhere to be marveled at and, perhaps, emulated when our pensions run out.