Views of the Couvert de la Sèche de Gimel

Dwight Peck's personal website

Winter 2007-2008

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.

Couvert de la Sèche de Gimel in the Jura Farms series

18 November 2007, and there's nothing much that needs to be done urgently, so we'll go out and take some photos of the Couvert de la Sèche de Gimel. The people in the parking lot are laying out some giant inflatable balloons and strapping helmets on, it's hard to tell why.

We're setting off from the large carpark on the Marchairuz-Le Brassus road, following a predecessor's track gratefully. For some reason that might have made a little sense at the time, we didn't bring snowshoes with us today.

But following a track can soon become tiresome, so we'll mush off into the forest of Grande Rolat and hope for the best.

Funny trees, but sometimes with holes underneath them

It's very slow going today

It's becoming undeniable that we've made a mistake about those snowshoes.

A cautious eye out for holes in the limestone forest floor

An expanse of sunlight through the trees -- we're about to burst out into the open.

Bingo, right on the target: descending southeastward from the refuge of Joratte, there's the Couvert de la Sèche de Gimel (1318m)

The couvert is a sizable cowshed in the open spaces about a kilometre northwest of the farm of Sèche de Gimel itself. A photo of the interior can be seen below the map at the bottom of the page.

This is the Sèche de Gimel looking south across the protected nature area towards the Sèche des Amburnex. The crosscounty ski-du-fond tracks, later in the season, will be laid along the snow horizon just before that far treeline.

The topographical term sèche presumably refers to pastures that are reliably dry, not marshy. The forested area down in the depression is a protected nature area, and the farm of Sèche des Amburnex is just beyond that.

That's looking southeastward towards the little road back out to the Sèche de Gimel farm and the Combe des Amburnex road.

A couple of sportif types have been already been out in the new snow earlier today.

A little private chalet just at the edge of the forest, 120m northeast of the couvert

The rough nature reserve in down on the right -- some idea of what it's like there can be seen here, down toward the bottom of the page.

Sneaked views of the couvert as we wade down through the drifts alongside the pasture

The view from the northeast of the couvert

Out of the forest and looking for the trail past the Intercommunal refuge to the car

Fabulous scenes on a crisp sunny day; next time, snowshoes. Actually, we're off for Corsica in two days, so it's moot.

from SwitzerlandMobility (http://map.schweizmobil.ch/?lang=en)

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