Crêt de la Neige

Cret de la Neige (center)

The Cret de la Neige is with 1720 meters the highest mountain peaks in the entire Jura. It belongs to the Haute Chaîne, the easternmost and highest chain of the French Jura, and is situated in the Pays de Gex ( Ain department ), about 17 km northwest of the city of Geneva.

The boundaries of the Cret de la Neige the east by the level of the Pays de Gex and to the west by the valley of the Valserine. The crest of the Cret de la Neige falls in these two directions steeply. He gets up without foothills directly out of the plane of the Pays de Gex and overlooks the pool from Geneva around 1300 m. To the southwest of the Jura ridge leads directly to Reculet, about northeast to Grand Cret. A recent survey in 2003, the Geographical location of Institut National (IGN ) was performed in Villeurbanne, attested to the Cret de la Neige a height of 1720 m. Before the official height was given as 1718 m, which was obtained by rounding up the actual measured height of 1717.6 m. Thus, the Cret de la Neige was only 20 cm higher than the adjacent Reculet ( 1717.4 m). Even earlier, it was assumed that the Reculet is the highest mountain of the Jura.

In structural geological point of Cret de la Neige forms an anticline of the Jura Mountains, where the rock layers at the time of Jura folding in the late Miocene and Pliocene were pushed onto the further west in the sediments. The anticline is at the root of some five kilometers wide and is oriented towards the south-southwest - north- northeast, according to the strike of the Jura mountain chains in this section. The bedrock material of the Cret de la Neige comes from marine sediments of the upper Jurassic period ( in the comb area are mainly the dolomitic limestones of the Port Landien and the limestone beds of the Kimmeridgien and Sequanien ago) and the Cretaceous (mainly at the foot of the slope ).

Because of the limestone could be formed on the crest of the Cret de la Neige various karst phenomena. There are numerous karst fields and sinkholes, the rain water seeps into the porous substrate and in karst springs normally occurs at the foot of the Jura chain light again. Therefore, the slopes of the Haute Chaîne show very few above-ground rivers.

Unlike the other Jura peak of the Cret de la Neige is not predominantly grassy, but shows a rocky, rugged and partly crossed by small ravines relief in the comb area. The mountain has a harsh climate with an annual rainfall, which is about 2000 mm. In deep, not sunned and sheltered clefts can last the whole summer season of snow.

Another feature of the Cret de la Neige form growing in the comb area mountain pine. This sturdy pine species, which is found at altitudes between 1800 m and 2500 m in the Alps, is nowhere else in front of the Jura. The steep slopes of the Cret de la Neige are densely forested. Below about 900 m, there are mostly deciduous forest, about 1400 m to about a coniferous forest zone, which in turn is replaced by mountain pastures with subalpine vegetation. The Cret de la Neige is part of the nature reserve Haute Chaîne du Jura.