Mont Bally on a good day

Dwight Peck's personal website

Winter 2005-2006

Short breaks from poring over the newspapers as the Bushies implode

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.

A round-up of new farm pix, 22 January 2006

Mont Bally on a good day

Some years ago, when we lived in Gimel, we spent fondly-remembered early evenings trotting around Mont Bally as if it were the back garden. Now it's time to go back for an afternoon and get some new farm photos for our Jura farms series.

We're starting out on horrible snow from the Marchairuz road at about 1060m between St George and La St-George, and Dr Pirri immediately strides out up the first worthy hill in sight.

Dr Pirri charges upward in a fit of youthful exuberance, leaving his photographer "in the dust".

Things do not always go as planned, and in this case Dr Pirri begins to disappear disconcertingly.

With a modern flair for adaptive management, Dr Pirri reworks the project design. His assistant, after floundering and wallowing about in the mess Dr Pirri had made of the hillside, joined him at the top some 20 minutes later.

A successful climb, in many ways, but sadly the wrong hill, so the leader strides out back down again and heads for the real Mont Bally this time.

The farm of La Palud (evidently, 'the swamp') at 1067m, with a crosscountry ski track from La St George running right by the front door.

One of our main rules is that we NEVER walk along on prepared pistes or tracks. But in this case we did anyway, because we were totally lost and there was only a narrow ridge eastward with a nice ski track on it. We'll carry this shame with us always.

And after a tangly bunch of ridges farther on to the east (1090m), we came down on another ski de fond track precisely at the farm on Mont Bally (1057m).

Dr Pirri takes his seat and waits for the show to begin. (But Dr Pirri IS the show.)

Dr Pirri appears oblivious to the six-foot cornice looming out over his head, but providence looked kindly upon him for a change and spared him a wake-up call.

Mont Bally farm looking northward

Mont Bally looking southward, 22 January 2006

Hideously lost again, late-afternoon hikers are relieved to burst out of the woods upon La Palud once more, about 2km away from where they thought they were at the time.