Lac de Lessy

France

Sep 12

Written By Jon

The Lac de Lessy in Le Petit-Bornand-les-Glières (commonly referred to as Petit-Bornand) is a stunning mountain lake of the French Alps. Following the sign "Cenise" from the village of Petit-Bornand, the windy and steep road leads to the Chalet Refuge de Cenise, starting point of several hikes.

From there, the lake is accessible after an easy 1,5/2 hours hike but there are also a few other ways to reach it.

Lac de Lessy is not a very popular hike here, but it would definitely deserves more visitors even if it is quite incredible to enjoy such beautiful places being almost alone. The first part of the hike is a beautiful plateau offering spectacular views of the Aravis massif that you share with cows, (that were enjoying the sun just as much as I did)..

..and horses!

The second part goes under the Jallouvre mountain and is way more steep, except an open rocky part where I easily spotted a Common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) hovering in the air in search of his next meal, many Black Redstarts (Phoenicurus ochruros) and Common Linnets (Linaria cannabina), as well as a female Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe).

It leads you then to the Col de Sosay where you can finally see the Lac de Jessy below. Standing up there alone with this 360° view and a flock of at least 100 Yellow-billed Chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus) flying around was really breathtaking.

Yellow-billed Choughs (Pyrrhocorax graculus)

The way down by the same road was also enjoyable as the weather started to change bringing some heavy clouds and even some rain. The atmosphere of the place totally switched and it was beautiful.