Ascent to Jaman

Having gone to bed rather late, I didn't get the early start I could have done with. It was nearly noon by the time I left the house. The sun was no longer shining and low cloud had moved in. Even so, I took the funicular railway from behind Church House 300m uphill to Glion for the train cremaillère and ascend as far as the station at the Col de Jaman. I decided not to go right to the top to Rochers de Naye at 2,000m, not knowing for sure how deep the cloud layer would be. Last time I went to the top, a long time ago, we saw nothing. We arrived in cloud, and it was snowing.

By the time the train reached 1,000 Caux, we were above the cloud and the sky was endlessly blue, and the higher we went, the more complete was the coverage of snow, although it didn't look all that deep to me. The railways halt at Jaman has a snack bar, but opens only when the single ski lift is open on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. I imagine it's open more regularly at other times of year when the Col is a paradise for walkers.

It was a sheer delight to walk on the snow under bright blue skies in the sun. There was no wind, so it didn't feel cold, but I had the mountainside to myself! It was rather strange to be so alone in this fast space. I felt a little vulnerable, and was very careful, climbing up on to the ski slope to get a broader view for photos.

A railway worker had also boarded the train at Glion, having carried half a dozen steel girders across from the railway siding, and placed them in the baggage truck at the front of the train, whose main job is to carry skis, and supplies for the restaurant at the very top. The train stopped for him at the end of a roofed cutting on the line 50m from the halt. The girders were unloaded there and placed on a rack attached to a snowmobile parked nearby. By the time I got off the train, he was starting up the snowmobile and drove off down the hill.

I walked for about half an hour above the halt, then headed back to wait for the returning train. Soon the railway worker reappeared and sat at one of the picnic tables outside the snack bar, and started eating his lunch. The distinctive sound of the cog wheel train coming out of the tunnel that links the the Col to the summit announced its approach. We boarded about ten minutes later, and descended at much the same pace as we ascended, enabling me to catch some views of the mountainside that I missed on the way up, before going back into the cloud layer at 800m.

These weather conditions are typical of what we lived with at the other end of the lake for much of the winter. We were fortunate to be able to drive up into the Jura and do ski de fond in blue skies above the cloud. Happy days - and such a lovely memory of today to take home with me.