The Grand Ballon

The Vosges do not have peaks so much as ballons, rounded summits worn down long ago and now covered in grass and low pasture, and the Grand Ballon is the highest of them at 1,424 metres. A white radar sphere marks it from far off across the plain. The ridge road, the Route des Cretes, runs along the top of the range and delivers you to a car park ten minutes below the summit, so the climb is short. What you get for it is the whole Alsace plain laid out below, the Rhine somewhere in the haze, the Black Forest rising on the German side, and on a rare scrubbed-clean day the Alps on the southern horizon.

What you actually see

• The Alsace plain - the Rhine valley spread out below with the Black Forest beyond.
• The radar sphere - the white dome that marks the summit from across the plain.
• The Route des Cretes - the ridge road linking the high pastures and passes.
• The high farms - summer pastures where herders still make Munster cheese.

When to go

May to October for open roads and grass underfoot. The Alps show themselves only on cold clear days after a front has scoured the air, which is rare in summer haze. Weekends bring heavy motorcycle traffic to the ridge road. In winter sections of the Route des Cretes close and the slopes are skied instead.

Honest expectations

This is a drive-up summit with a car park ten minutes below, so nobody should expect a sense of remoteness. The wind blows constantly and it is markedly colder than the plain, even in July. The famous Alpine view is a lottery most visitors lose. Motorcycle noise along the ridge at weekends is relentless and hard to ignore.

Nearby

Guebwiller and the wine villages of the Alsace foothills lie down the eastern slope.