A while back, I met with a friend of a friend, Valère, who is a first year graduate student at University of Zurich. He has lived at CERN for a while, so I wanted to draw off of his expertise and ask him about the fun things to do in the area. When he said that you could climb the 2nd highest peak in the Jura, Le Reculet, that immediately went to the top of my list of things to do.
I had to put it on hold for quite some time, because there was still a lot of snow up on the tops of the mountains. Some fellow adventurers on the internet recommended bringing snowshoes, or even crampons and ice picks! I didn’t want to mess with that. Alex and I had a tentative plan to go last weekend, but cancelled it and went to Geneva instead, when there was still too much snow.
I was talking about this with my two friends and colleagues, Nicoló and Andrea earlier this week. I noted that the snow seemed to be melting, and that I was looking forward to going. Nicoló mentioned that he had gone several times before with his friends, but hadn’t made it quite to the top yet. I offered him another chance, and I was so pleased when both he and Andrea took me up on it! Now we had a proper hiking party.
On Saturday morning, Nicolo picked every one up by 10am. We drove to Tiocan, where the trail starts, and headed out at about 10:30am. The thermometer read about 6°C when we began. For the first part of the path, you have a choice between taking a steep path, and a not-so-steep path. Personally, I would go with the not-so-steep path. It is longer, but not by too much.
Even going up the first part of the path, we were already out of breath. The gradient is quite steep, and there was still an appreciable amount of snow on the ground. This wasn’t going to be easy! I was already sweating in just a t-shirt and light sweater.
At some point, the not-so-steep path meets back up with the steep path and takes you up to a crossroads.
We stopped here for a little bit, and enjoyed some wonderful Swiss chocolate.
On a clear day, I am sure the view of the surrounding area and the Alps would be amazing! Unfortunately, it was cloudy.
The view up the mountain was great, at least!
We continued up, and took the path to the left. It told us that we were an hour and half from the top. Now this path was VERY steep. It might have been better in the summer, but all of the snow made it seem like climbing countless flights of stairs.
After quite a number of breaks to rest and admire the beautiful scenery, we got to a spot where it opened out and stopped for lunch. We were all exhausted, and we weren’t sure how far from the peak we were. It was looking like we might not make it to the top today. But we looked up, and saw that the end might be in sight! We couldn’t quite see the metal cross that supposedly marked the top, but we did see a pass that seemed to be the last steep ascent. So with the extra energy from lunch, we set off back up the mountain.
Yes, those are clouds on the mountain. We hiked INTO the clouds. Coolest thing ever.
I’m not sure if it was lunch or the anticipation of reaching the top, but the last bit of our hike flew by. We took a narrow path along a cliff, and of course, stopped for a selfie.
We made it up the last hill, and finally saw it! The cross that marks the summit!
I was so excited to have made it – it felt like a huge accomplishment. We had climbed a mountain!
We took another chocolate break, and sat admiring the other side side of the mountain. I’m not sure how life can get much better than that!
There was quite a lot of snow at the top! I understand why we saw so many people on snowshoes and skis. Personally, I would skip the snowshoes, but there were some slopes that looked like they would be really fun to ski.
I took the opportunity to climb up the cross a ways. By doing that, I was actually higher than the HIGHEST peak in the Jura, Crêt de le Neige, which is actually only one meter taller than Le Reculet.
I don’t remember exactly, but I think we reached the top at about 2pm. It was quite cold at the top! There was a thermometer up there that read 0°C. At this point, we were very thankful for the jackets that we had neglected on our hike up. We stayed for a while, and then headed back down. We wanted to take the other path, the other that went to the right at the cross roads. The one nice thing about the snow is that we simply followed all of the footprints back!
Going down was quite steep, and quite snowy. At one point, asked the group when the last time they had rolled down a hill. No one could remember! So we all took part and rolled down some nice, snowy hills. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much! It was a blast.
At some points, it was so steep that Andrea and I resorted to simply sitting down and sliding down the hill, sans sled. We got wet, but it was totally worth it!
On our way down, we passed by a small group of people who were jumping off the cliffs with hang gliders! That looked very fun.
We finally made it to the bottom at about 4pm, a little less than six hours after we had started. We walked about six miles and climbed about 3000ft. We were tired and wet, but very happy! That experience rivals almost any other I have ever had – it was amazing. I am so looking forward to more hikes in the future.
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