Mont Tendre
Fly here
Highest point of the Vaud Jura, a vast mountain pasture ringed by fir forests.
From the basket
In the Vaud Jura, no Swiss summit of the range rises higher than the Mont Tendre: 1679 metres, above the village of Montricher. From the balloon it hardly looks like a postcard mountain: it is a broad back, covered in pastures and forests, rising gently to a rounded summit.
Its rock is a very old limestone, worked by water for millennia. On its flanks the surface is pitted with karren, those stone slabs carved with channels, and with dolines, round basins where water vanishes underground. Seen from above, the relief looks like a lumpy cloth.
It is above all the view that makes its reputation. On one side, two great lakes, Lake Neuchâtel and Lake Geneva; on the other, the whole chain of the Alps, from the Bernese Oberland to the summits of the Vanoise in Savoy. On a clear morning the line of peaks seems to float above the Swiss Plateau.
Make a wide circle above the broad back, then let the wind carry you towards the Vallée de Joux, on the far side of the ridge.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Mont Tendre”.
All around
- Dent de Vaulion, 1483 m, 11 km to the north
- Lake Geneva, 15 km to the south
- Lausanne, 26 km to the east