An Evening Walk At Le Col De La Faucille, Jura, France

It has been very hot this last week so we drove up the Jura mountains yesterday evening and went for a walk at Le Col De La Faucille. It was amazingly fresh and cool. There was a pleasant breeze.




The trees are tall here and smell strongly of pine resin.











Looking out over the valleys toward the West huge stretches of sky can be seen. (As usual, click on photos to enlarge.)





At the edge of the path is an incredibly steep drop all the way to the bottom of the first valley.





We saw a very odd tree stump...



...that looked like something had melted it into some sort of wax figure or piece of coral.


There were flowers everywhere, even the dandelions had only just gone to seed up here.





There were lots of wild roses.






There were yellow, white, and lots of purple flowers.


Among the vegetation there is often a huge boulder or two here and there.








The rock formations on the Jura are very interesting.












The rock looks squished together from lots of smaller rocks and there are fissures all throughout. The color is exquisite, mixing blues and greys with reds and rusts.




We walked further along the mountain for nearly an hour when we realized it was getting rather late and we did have to walk back! The sunset was gorgeous.



The light reflecting from the tree trunks glowed pink red.


















As we walked back at a quick pace to avoid being eaten by all the insects that were gathering. I guess we looked like a great feast, and whenever we stopped we were instantly surrounded.Yes, Jazzy did come along, though she was most surprised at our late departure from home for such an outing. She's usually in bed at about this time. Here she is, with one of the flaps on her backpack cage down to keep her protected from the breeze as the sun receded.


The sky grew luminous after the sun had set.










The light reflected off a long expanse of cloud further north up the same valley.










Looking North towards the Geneva valley side of the Jura there was a huge set of clouds building up to storm proportions. During the drive back down we saw lightning flashes from this foaming mass.






As we came to the end of our walk and arrived back at our starting point, Jazzy was sleepy. You might be able to detect her phasing in and out here, it even showed up on the camera!One last glimpse back before driving back down to the other side of the Jura. We arrived home, refreshed, contented and well exercised.