Creux du Van
Fly here
Striking rock cirque, a natural amphitheatre in the Neuchâtel Jura.
From the basket
Above the Val de Travers, the mountain looks as if it had been bitten. You fly over an immense cirque of rock: a horseshoe cliff some fourteen hundred metres wide and two hundred metres high. From the balloon the curve is perfect and the drop dizzying.
This cirque was carved slowly. Water first dissolved the limestone, then, during the last glaciation, a small glacier settled at the bottom of the combe. Frost and thaw split the rock, and the ice carried the debris downhill. Today that debris forms a moraine beneath the cliff, partly blocking the course of the Areuse.
All around lies a nature reserve of more than fifteen square kilometres. Approach the rim gently: ibex, reintroduced in 1965, wander there without fear, and chamois are plentiful. With a little luck you will spot a golden eagle nesting in the cliff, or the wallcreeper, a small red-winged bird that climbs the rocks.
Circle the cirque from above, following the rim, then descend towards the gorges the river has cut.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Creux du Van”.
All around
- Lake Neuchâtel, 5 km to the south-east
- Neuchâtel, 17 km to the north-east
- Le Chasseron, 1607 m, 17 km to the south-west