Loop 22: Haute-Joux family circuit

This short 17.9km itinerary is a great way to discover the vast open spaces of the Haute-Joux plateau between Cerniébaud and Mignovillard. On the menu: valleys, reaches and forests.

Cerniébaud is a small village set against the Haute-Joux forest massif that runs alongside the Val de Mouthe. A starting point for many walks and a Nordic sports resort in winter, it offers a view over the succession of coombs that make up the plateau. This small world, both rural and tourist-oriented, is a highly reputed Comté cheese-making area, dotted with fruit-mills that give each hamlet a different face. Large farms seem to be set in the landscape, in the shelter of a coomb or a valley, while immense meadows and small streams give these high plateaux a real sense of serenity in the silence of the great outdoors.

From Cerniébaud, the route passes through the villages of La Latette, Communailles-en-Montagne and Froidefontaine before reaching Mignovillard, another small Nordic resort where you can stop off at the cheese factory... This 50km² commune is one of the largest in the Jura, and also boasts 1,000 hectares of forest. In other words, woodworking is omnipresent in this area, where there is no shortage of sawmills.

The route then goes deep into the Haute Joux massif, one of the most beautiful forests in the Jura, alternating between fir and pre-forest, and returns to Cerniébaud via the Combe Simon.