L'Etang du Duzillet in January

Dwight Peck's personal website

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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.

L'Étang du Duzillet in January

17 January 2017. The Étang or Pond du Duzillet, nestled between the river Rhône and the autoroute A9 in the commune of Ollon, canton of Vaud, Switzerland, can provide the venue for a very pretty short walk for health or aesthetic reasons, or both. (The commune of Ollon extends from the Rhône, at 385m asl, about 15km up the mountain, past the peak of the Chamossaire at 2112m asl, to the Col de la Croix at 1776m, and includes any number of villages and hamlets.)

Very likely it's been formed in a hole left over from excavations to provide material for building the highway, like some of the little autoroute-side ponds farther up the Rhône valley towards Martigny.

The étang is only about 700m long and less than 200m wide, with a small snackbar (on the right) that's open in the summer.

Thin ice on the northern end

Looking southward up the Rhône valley

The Dent de Morcles (2969m) at the gateway from the Préalps to the big Alps beyond

Baah.

An energy pipeline over the Rhône

A gas or oil pipeline from the Tamoil plant over the Rhône

Some of the valley-bottom industry that keeps our economy lively and our mountains reasonably pristine

The Rhône and Les Dents du Midi

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Walking back away from the river to complete our bracing half-hour loop

A canal alongside the A9 autoroute going south

29 January 2017. Two weeks later, less snow, more ice

Intrepid kids and a watchful dad

A hole in the ice, it seems . . .

. . . with an abandoned scuba tank. That can't be good.

Perhaps he'll surface in the spring.

The Dent de Morcles

Tamoil reservoir tanks, adjacent to the pond

The A9 autoroute ("The route contains charge areas", as our Volvo GPS reminds us in an overworked posh British accent)

The view up the hill

Tamoil and lots of intrepid kids

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