Balloon of Alsace

See also: Balloon

The balloon of Alsace is a top located in the southern part of the chain of the the Vosges, with the borders of the areas of Alsace, Franche-Comté and Lorraine.

Located in the middle of the Regional natural park of the Balloons of the Vosges, the balloon of Alsace is classified great national site. Southern end of the solid mass, it culminates with 1 247 meters of altitude. It thus offers an imposing panorama, from the Black Forest towards the east, the Bernese alpine range in the south until in direction of the Mont Blanc which one sometimes sees in clear weather. It extends partly on four communes, four departments and three areas:

Sewen (Haut-Rhin, Alsace);
the Saint-Maurice-on-Moselle (the Vosges, Lorraine);
Floor-the-Mines (Haute-Saône, Franche-Comté);
Lepuix known as Lepuix-Gy (Territory of Belfort, Franche-Comté).

It is one of the most sprinkled places France, also famous for the purity of the air. One can make there Ski basic and of descent the winter: 10 ski slopes alpine with soon of the alteration work. There are also VTT and Parapente the summer. The solid mass is also a place privileged for the hikers thanks to the hundreds of kilometers of marked out paths accessible to all of which the Sentier of great excursion GR. 5. It is not rare to see there Chamois in the middle of a varied and particular flora. With the top of an altitude close to 1 000 meters, the forest makes place with the thatches , stripped peaks or twist some Hêtre S rabougris and where one can find the yellow Gentiane and the bilberry. The Mixed trade-union interdépartemental of the Balloon of Alsace (SMIBA) gathers the territorial collectivities and communal managing the solid mass.

The road connecting the valley of the the Moselle in north to the valleys of the Tasty to the south and that of the Doller to the east crosses a collar near to the top, with the altitude of 1 171 meters. The first of these transportation routes was wanted by the king Louis XV.

A Virgin polychrome bronze, ex-voto of 1860, a statue of Jeanne d' Arc symbolizing the attachment of the French to the Alsace, inaugurated the September 19th 1909, and a monument with the glory of bomb disposal experts died for France going back to 1950 were set up with the balloon of Alsace. A terminal Rene Pottier recalls that this cyclist passed each time at the head, in 1905 and 1906, with the first collar ever proposed with the runners of Tour de France.

; Remarkable snowing up: Absolute records identified post-war period: 3,20 meters on March 7th, 2006 (old record 2,85 m)

External bonds

the Balloon of Alsace: site of the Interdépartemental Mixed trade-union of the Balloon of Alsace (SMIBA)
Webcam of the Balloon of Alsace

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