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.
Pré
de Bière, La Perrause, Grandes Chaumilles, and more and more new snow.
It's
been raining in the villages all week, but not up on the Jura ridges. On a stormy
weekend, we seem to have the whole place to ourselves.
The farm
at Pré de Bière, 18 February 2006,
not far from the Marchairuz road, in a bucketload of new snow, about knee-deep
with snowshoes on.
On
a blustery day, the narrator plodded and swam past the Pré de Bière
farm towards La Perrause, frequently wishing he hadn't.
Pré
de Bière farm with the wind at full throttle
La
Perrause, another kilometre or two farther on, and over an hour's toil and
trouble knee-deep in white smoosh.
Narrator
knee-deep in white smoosh.
La
Perrause in a strong wind, 18 February 2006, with Grand Cunay up in the background
Circling
round La Perrause and then bolting back for the car.
Needless
to say, one is following his own track out of here, as nearly as one can still
discern it.
What
a relief, back to our beloved Volkswagen, named "Günther", as night
closes in on the Col du Marchairuz.
Unfinished
business: we're back the next day in temporarily better weather, 19 February 2006.
The
farm at Pré de Bière is somewhat more inviting with the sun on it.
There
are some other hikers having a little bite of lunch under the eaves there, so
we'll pass on by and won't disturb them. Perhaps, as we're only about 200m from
the highway at this point, they're not so much "hikers lunching" as
they are "lunchers".
But we're
bound still for La Perrause, following the track one has so laboriously created
yesterday, and . . . perhaps . . . beyond. (The Col du Marchairuz is just above
the chimney in this view of the Pré de Bière farm.)
Here's
La Perrause again, much easier this time following yesterday's track, and . .
.
.
. . this time we've got help, the Doctors Durham, practicing their song and dance
routines along the way.
The narrator
and Dr Durham at La Perrause, unfortunately having come to the end of yesterday's
pre-packed snowshoe trail, condemned now to break new heavy wet smoosh towards
Grandes Chaumilles.
The
solar panels at La Perrause.
Durhams
in deep snow, sometimes with snowshoes on, sometimes with them off.
Durhams
still in deep snow, frequently with snowshoes that have somehow got unattached.
Doctors Durham Dancing.
A
regretful glance back at La Perrause through serious smoosh.
The
same, with zoom on
A
pause in the hike to recover a fallen Durham
Up we get
Doctor
Durham approaches the farm at Grandes Chaumilles, 19 November.
Here they come
Gourmet
little cheese packets at Grandes Chaumilles
and a special kind of bread.
From
Grandes Chaumilles zoom-looking southwest, first La Perrause and, in the far distance,
La Dôle about 20km off.
Prof
Durham briefly enters another cognitive universe, then comes back to ours.
Durhams
welcome the onset of a new snowstorm to put a splendid finish on the day.
Former
ACS professors hold reunions in unlikely places.
"Storm"
now become "blizzard", it's still hard to get some hikers to give it
up and get back to "Wolfgang" the Volkswagen in time to get over the
pass at Marchairuz before we can't until next week.
Dwight
Peck's farm photos
Feedback
and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, 
.
All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 28 February 2006, revised 3 January 2014.
