After leaving the refuge around 0800 I got an hour or so of good skiing done covering some distance and enjoying the early morning light. It was pretty cold but ideal for the skis so they ran quickly without too much work.

Somewhere between two farms I picked up a companion though, a dog started to follow me and I got a bit concerned he was going to get lost. I doubled back to where I’d seen him first two or three times hoping he’d head off home but each time I’d turn back to my route he’d follow me. A couple of times I thought he’d gone but suddenly he’d bound out of the snow or forest, tail wagging and rolling around in the snow delighted to see me again. After a couple of km of this I realized I was going to have to try and find some way of getting him home.

I took a minor detour into a village and went to the local hotel and asked for their help, fortunately they’d got a dog of their own so they were happy to help. I gave them some idea where I’d first seen him and then skied off without him. That’s him above looking a bit worried that his new friend is going off without him.

I was really worried about what happened to him so I got in touch with the hotel who were able to confirm they’d tracked the owner down and that he’d been picked up and made it back home.

By now the weather had turned and I skied another few hours to La Cure on the Swiss border in fairly poor weather. The detour and loopbacks had cost some distance and at the end of the day I’d covered about 37km which was a shade more than I expected. After a long day I was delighted to be staying at the Hotel Arbez Franco Suisse in La Cure in a comfortable room and to take a great meal in their restaurant.

Tags: Cross Country Skiing | Grande Traversée du Jura | GTJ | Jura | Nordic Skiing | TJS | Traversée du Jura Suisse | XC skiing

The Jura are a range of mountains separating the Rhine and Rhone rivers along the French-Swiss border. Despite our valley house being just below the Jura in the years we’ve been here I’ve never much explored the Jura instead going to the alps. But last summer I was climbing a lot in the Jura with a friend who lives in Annecy as the Jura is handy for both of us and I thought how great the area was for winter touring. It’s an obvious idea to make a traverse of the whole length of the mountain chain so I set out this week to cross the Jura on skis. Given the rolling terrain it makes sense to use nordic touring gear, longer skinny skis ideal for covering larger distances on rolling terrain.

So I took a train, bus and taxi journey to Giron in the Ain department of France to start a route called the GTJ or the Grande Traversée du Jura français, my plan is to use this for a day or two before hopping over the border into Switzerland and picking up the Traversée du Jura Suisse (TJS) which is a bit wilder and technically harder. I dropped into the tourist office at Giron for a chat and they rather kindly offered me a ride up the mountain to avoid some poorer snow low down which saved me about an hours skiing I’d think, that was handy as the public transport had taken me to nearly lunch time to get to Giron so I was on a fairly tight schedule.

That’s the refuge I used for the first night, extremely basic but it has running hot water and power which is more than we get in the winter in the high alps. The guardian produced some good food and it was comfortable enough, there were only two other people staying so it was pretty quiet.

Tags: Cross Country Skiing | Grande Traversée du Jura | GTJ | Jura | Nordic Skiing | TJS | Traversée du Jura Suisse | XC skiing