Col de Joux Plane

Col de Joux Plane
Col de Joux Plane, looking west. The highest point is on the right above.
Compass direction	North	south
Pass height	1712  m
Department	Haute-Savoie
Watershed	unnamed stream → Dranse de Morzine → Dranse → Rhone	Ruisseau du Plonet → Valentine → Giffre → Arve → Rhone
Valley locations	Morzine	Samoëns
expansion	D 354
Lock	winter
Mountains	Alps
profile
Mountain scoring		HC
Ø pitch	7.4% (750 m / 10.2 km)	8.5% (989 m / 11.6 km)
Map (Haute-Savoie)
Coordinates	46 ° 7 '58 "  N , 6 ° 42' 41"  E Coordinates: 46 ° 7 '58 "  N , 6 ° 42' 41"  E

The Col de Joux Plane is a 1712  m high pass in the French department of Haute-Savoie , over which a mule track leads. The department road D 354 does not run over the pass, but has its weakly pronounced apex at an altitude of 1691  m ( Lage ) south of it near it .

location

The pass is in the municipality of Verchaix . A vertex is difficult to make out, it is a flat alpine pasture (plane = flat). Directly north of the highest point of the road is the Lac du Col de Joux Plane , a shallow lake about 280 meters long with a large island. On the south side there is an impressive panorama of the 4810  m high Mont Blanc massif . The highest mountain in the vicinity is the Pointe d'Angolon at 2090  m ( location ).

At the Col de Joux Plane, a distinction must be made between the pass in the orographic-scenic and the traffic-geographic sense (see → Mountain Pass ). The Col de Joux Plane is a mountain saddle that connects the valley of the La Valentine river in the south with the valley of the village of Le Grand Pré in the north. The D 354 does not go over this pass, but has its apex near it in the valley of La Valentine. This is also called "Col de Joux Plane" and is indicated by a sign on the road and a rounded height of 1700  m .

Nonetheless, the road connects the two valleys, but not directly over the Col de Joux Plane saddle: Coming from the south, the road first runs in the valley of La Valentine up to its apex and then remains about 1.5 km in the same valley it reaches the northwestern valley of the river l'Arpettaz (valley town Les Gets ) over a ridge and runs there for about 1.5 km at almost the same altitude. Then it goes over the Col de Ranfolly ( 1656  m , location ) into the northern valley towards Morzine .

Importance for road traffic

The pass is of comparatively little importance for national road traffic and is largely used for agriculture and tourism. On a higher scale, the D 354 connects the Giffre valley (with the municipality of Samoëns in the south) with the Dranse de Morzine valley in the north (with the Morzine tourist center). The main route is the well-developed D 902 over the saddle of Les Gets ( 1170  m ).

Importance in cycling

The Col de la Joux Plane is of great importance in cycling. It was run over for the first time in 1978 during the Tour de France and has been on the route a further 10 times since then. Despite its relatively low altitude of 1691 m and its only 989 meters of altitude it is in the mountain classification of so-called. " Hors catégorie ", the highest difficulty of a mountain of the Tour de France, attributed. With a length of 11.6 km, it has an average gradient of 8.5% on the south side. His profile is very rough. The stages mostly end in Morzine on the north side, so that the Joux Plane can be compared in terms of drama with mountain arrivals.

In 2000 Jan Ullrich was able to inflict the only serious defeat on his rival Lance Armstrong during a mountain stage on this pass - Armstrong suffered hunger and lost 1:37 minutes.

Winter sports

Around the top of the pass there are a total of seven chargeable cross-country trails with a total length of 30 km available in winter . Since the cross-country trails are also in the area of ​​the road, this is not cleared in winter and a continuous drive on the pass is not possible, only the access from the south side is open. The skiing area of ​​Morzine and Les Gets extends over the slopes north of the pass.

Web links

Commons : Col de Joux Plane  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Col de la Joux Plane on www.quaeldich.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ruisseau du Plonet at SANDRE (French)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} géoportail.fr. Retrieved March 2, 2013 . 
3. ↑ See picture
4. ↑ L'historique de Tour, Les Sommets, Joux-Plane 1713 m. In: Le Tour de France . Retrieved November 28, 2010 (French / English). 
5. ↑ L'historique de Tour, Année 2000, Étape 16 Courchevel> Morzine-Avoriaz. In: Le Tour de France . Retrieved November 28, 2010 (French / English). 
6. ↑ Stage 16 roadwatch: Live coverage of day 16 in the Tour de France - the final mountain stage over 196 km from Corchevel to Morzine. In: BBC Sport. July 18, 2000, accessed November 28, 2010 . 
7. ^ Ski de fond au Col-de-Joux-Plane, Domaine nordique du col de Joux Plane. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 9, 2013 ; Retrieved November 28, 2010 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.