Le Grand Ventron, September 2024

The Vosges mountain range in Alsace turns out to be surprisingly, well, mountainous, with steep cliffs, large boulders, and hair pinned mountain pass roads, which came as a little bit of a surprise to me, having grown up in the Alps myself, and expecting more of a landscape with gentle slopes and undulating hills.

I’m no tree expert, but the beech forests around the Grand Ventron mountain peak seem to owe their existence to a very specific local micro-climate. – Whereas the Vosges mountains themselves are generally fully covered by fir trees, the composition of the forest suddenly changes as you approach the top mountain ridge – quite abruptly, firs give way to beeches, but only so on the eastern side of the crest. This phenomenon can be nicely observed from the Promontoire Vosges-view point a little bit up from popular Col De la Schlucht mountain pass.

Meaning, of course, in order to visit the beech forests of Le Grand Ventron, you need to hike close to the top of the mountain ridge in a north-south direction, but on the eastern side only. This is confirmed by looking at the map of the core zone, which consists of a narrow strip of maybe some 7000 by 400 meters. – Too bad, then, that the Grand Ventron-hiking path goes along the western side of the ridge only, where there are lots of fir, but essentially no beeches. Hiking outside marked paths along the eastern side of the ridge appears essentially impossible given the rough, steep terrain. Fortunately, however, there are a number of “access paths” that enter / leave the core area in orthogonal east-westerly directions.

I overnighted in a small hotel in Le Régit in the remote and very bucolic Moselotte valley, and started my hike early next morning by walking up the road to Col de Bramont. From there, a small mountain path crosses for some 500 meters the core area along the way to Col de Pourri Faing, where you pass the eponymous tourbière, a small bog area with interesting flora and fauna (a plaque in French nicely explains its significance). These 500 meters of beech forest were by far the most interesting part of the hike. This forest appears to receive a lot of precipitation, with the floor almost completely covered by moss, extending some 20-30 centimeters up the beech tree trunks, probably as far up as there is snow in winter. Further up, tree trunks are covered by lichen.

Out of the core zone, I hiked further south towards Le Grand Ventron peak. As it was starting to rain quite heavily (lots of precipitation here, as stated!), I did not climb it but instead took the path back down to lake Kruth-Wildenstein, a picturesque reservoir and popular outing area with a quite imposing dam. This path allowed for crossing another 300 meters or so of core zone beech trees, but they were far less impressive than the trees back at Pourri Faing. Some four and a half hours after starting my hike I arrived at my destination of Kruth village.

Transportation-wise, there are quite a few bus lines that zig-zag through the Vosges mountains, but they run quite irregularly, so some advance planning is required in order not to get stuck in the middle of nowhere. Myself, I took a bus from Saint-Dié-des-Vosges via picturesque Gérardmer to Col De la Schlucht to enjoy some spectacular mountain views, and then on to Le Régit where I stayed for the night (no official bus stop in Le Régit, but as I was pretty much the only person on the bus the friendly driver allowed me get off irregularly). On the other side of the mountain, Kruth is connected by regular buses and trains to Mulhouse and further on to Basel airport.