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La Chandoline

Go Green !

Go Green !

For: France magazine, November 2010

From: Judy Armstrong

Let’s face it: most winter sports holidays are about as green as a ripe tomato. A typical week of downhill skiing in any French resort involves energy consumption on an eye-watering scale. It usually includes road transport to a British airport, international flights, bus transfer from the airport, and road travel within the resort. Lift systems gobble electricity and diesel, piste-side restaurants need fuel for heating, lighting and cooking, and electric-operated snow canons demand reservoirs of precious water. Let’s not forget the diesel-thirsty piste-bashers to smooth the runs, flood-lit night skiing, and on-mountain hotels which use staggering amounts of water and fuel. It’s almost enough to make you pull on a woolly coat and take up beach-combing in Northumberland.

Almost.

Luckily, there are options. You can have a green winter holiday, Cinderella, but you will have to make an effort. It’s all about human-powered activity, propelling yourself through the winter wonderland without relying on chairlifts or engines for assistance.

It’s not only possible, it’s exhilarating, refreshing and energising. Look at the gentle stomp of snowshoeing and the swish and glide of cross-country skiing: these top choices for do-it-yourself wintersport allow you to chill out and warm up at the same time.

Opting to get the heart and lungs pumping is one thing, finding the right location is another. In tandem with the times, there are growing numbers of ‘green hotels’ in France, with a prime example in Franche-Comté, in the Parc Naturel Regional du Haut-Jura. Rural gite La Chandoline has been custom-built by Valérie Dalmais and Leyla Ramirez to be eco-efficient on every level. It incorporates solar gain, water capture, wooden construction with rockwool insulation, wood granules for heating and organic food in the kitchen. Open for business since 2008, La Chandoline has already impressed, winning the 2008 Prix Eco-Trophée for its use of renewable energies.

Having found a low-impact wintersports haven, how do we get there? As this is France, we are spoilt for choice, with ferry and car, trains or planes allowing easy access. While flying ranks in the gutter on the green gauge, trains offer a planet-friendly solution, with ferry travel making a strong case based on big-picture sustainability.

Duncan and I arrive at La Chandoline late on a day filled with snowflakes. Valérie welcomes us into the warmth, her pretty face lit by an easy smile. “You look tired from the journey – so you must go for a walk. It will help you breathe and feel refreshed. Take snowshoes, follow the yellow poles, turn right at the cream house; you can’t get lost. Really, you can walk anywhere here.”

First she shows us to our room under the eaves, a cosy space with blonde wood, thick beams and a wide view over the Jura mountains. Next she ushers us down spiral stairs, past spacious living and dining areas, to the basement with a sauna, gym and yoga room next to the equipment stores. “Help yourself, have fun!” she says, and waves us into the evening.

We totter into a white world, our raquettes shuffling in the soft snow. Within a lungful of minutes we realise Valérie is right: walking on snowshoes, breathing crisp air, is utterly invigorating. After just a small distance it feels natural; casting off our journey, we are absorbed into a pristine land.

We cross a plateau, past epicea pine trees pattered with snow and squat farmhouses with icicles like teeth. Cresting a small hill, we see the Monts de Jura, white shadows on a pale sky. Night is falling, a frozen shimmer of mist rises from the valley, and mountain, forest and meadow blur together. As the sky dims to indigo we see La Chandoline, shrouded in winter stillness. This is a million miles from a conventional wintersport holiday, and already it feels like heaven.

We join the other guests around the stone Tulikivi fireplace which is belting out heat in the living room. They have come from all corners of l’Hexagone, from Paris and Perpignan, Nice and Antibes. Everyone is here to enjoy snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, in groups guided by Valérie or on their own. “Today was marvellous,” sighs Parisienne Danielle, relaxing in a squashy sofa. “We walked all morning on snowshoes to a cabin in the woods. In our rucksacks we had cheese, wine, bread, everything to make a fondue. So we lit a fire, with everyone working together, and had a wonderful lunch with snow all around. It was such a great experience. I am excited now about tomorrow!”

Over dinner, cooked from organic ingredients sourced as locally as possible, we sit at long tables and chat. Many guests have been here before, in winter and summer, with others experiencing Jurassien hospitality for the first time.

All 16 guest rooms at La Chandoline are full this week – winter is a busy season here although summer, too, is a delight. The gite sits firmly on the Grande Traversée du Jura (GTJ), a long-distance path that can be walked or cycled in summer, and explored on snowshoes or cross-country skis in the snowy months. While the summer version is 400km long, the winter route, created in 1978, covers 175km from Villers-le-Lac to Giron for skis or 135km from Mouthe to Giron for snowshoes. “Our area is regarded as a paradise for ski de fond, or cross-country skiing, because most villages have their own maintained tracks,” explains Valérie. “So, it was natural to link these pistes together to make a winter GTJ.”

In the morning, we realise the scope is enormous: La Chandoline is connected to nearby hamlets by ski de fond tracks and waymarked routes for raquettes, or snowshoes, so guests can simply step out the door and begin their day. There is no grinding noise from ski lifts, no queues or ugly pylons; just open meadows, mountains and woodland, waiting to be explored.

Joining Valérie’s raquette group, we march toward pristine mountains. The powder snow glitters like diamonds and the sky is sapphire blue. Our snowshoes sink then bite as we shuffle and puff uphill, with Valérie choosing a sympathetic pace for city-slow legs

As we walk, she offers snippets of history, identifies trees and points out animal tracks, bringing the mountains to life. After a couple of hours we descend to an old farmhouse with views across a valley and settle onto benches, enjoying the chilly sunshine. “Now it is time for a Jurassien sauna!” announces Valérie. She strips off her top and rubs handfuls of snow over her bare torso. Marie-Noelle, from Nice, bravely takes up the challenge; the rest of us shriek with horror and keep firm hold of our warm jackets.

Next day, our legs limbered up by the snowshoe session, we explore further afield on cross-country skis. La Chandoline is in the Hautes Combes of Haut Jura, which boasts an extensive network of prepared tracks. Initially we follow the GTJ south-west toward Aubergettes, then pick up signposts to Lajoux. This is the heart of the Parc Naturel Regional du Haut-Jura and its extraordinary headquarters, the Maison du Parc, which inspired some of La Chandoline’s architecture.

A short ski-slide away is another unusual building: La Tartine. We find it at the end of a tunnel dug between snow banks, with cross-country skis propped at the door. This is a tiny restaurant which offers, well, tartine: slices of bread with toppings like spicy sausage and parsley butter, or smoked Jura trout with fromage blanc. We squeeze into a small room where six customers occupy benches around two tables. Framed photos of donkeys and children dot the walls, and a dog lies curled on the stone flag floor. We sit shoulder to shoulder, enjoying the heat and camaraderie, sipping local wine and eating savoury slices.

The afternoon fades. We slip back into the cold and, as we glide home to La Chandoline, realise something exciting. Here, in Franche-Comté, we have touched the spirit of an eco-friendly winter holiday: of slow travel, gentle exercise and simple living. It proves, against all the odds, that white can be green after all.

THE ECO-HOUSE

La Chandoline was, in the beginning, a dream. In the end, it swallowed six years of planning and two of construction: its birth was harder than its creators Valérie Dalmais and Leyla Ramirez could ever have imagined. “To start, it was simple. We wanted to build an ecological house,” Leyla explains. “We are both very much in touch with nature, we eat and believe in organic food, and we wanted a gite that respected that.”

Valérie agrees. She has guided here for nearly 30 years and loves the area with a passion. “Nature is my work, but it is also my life so it was important to have a house that reflected that. We wanted to use wood, earth, sun and rain. Our mission was to take old traditions and natural resources, and use them in a modern way.”

So, they consulted architects and visited sites to see what worked and what didn’t. “We wanted a wooden house but we had to fight for permission to use timber; all the big houses here are concrete with wood exterior,” says Leyla. “Everyone is afraid of wood because of fires in old houses, so we had to address many security issues. For example we wanted cellulose, not fibreglass, for insulation but it was not allowed because there was a chance it might burn. In the end, we compromised with rockwool.”

Wood is notorious for transmitting sound, so La Chandoline uses a new technology in sound insulation where noise is absorbed by holes in the material’s surface. Any internal walls that aren’t wood are covered with earth mixed with straw and sand; this absorbs heat during the day and throws it back in the evening. Directional solar panels work with the wood-burning stove to heat water, run radiators and underfloor heating. Rain water is captured for flushing toilets. Vast, double-glazed windows allow solar gain, with a minimal overhang on the roof to avoid blocking the natural light.

“People are very interested in the house,” says Leyla. “They love the principle, and the reality. Our guests are attracted by the combination of the house, the mobilité douce (low energy travel) and the nature. It makes us so happy, that they love it as we do.”

GREEN TRAVEL?

Flying may seem the fastest way to reach the snow, but once you’ve travelled to and from an airport plus spent time waiting for your flight, it doesn’t always work out that way. In an environmental sense, figures on carbon emissions made by rail, road and air travel show flying as a no-go. According to the Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie, Institut Francais de l'Environnement , emissions per traveller and per kilometre from domestic flights are 180 grams, car travel emits 117.7 grams and train travel 5.7 grams (statistics from SNCF via Rail Europe).

This backs up what we think we already know: air travel is a huge contributor to global warming, and avoiding a flight when there are easy alternatives can genuinely help individuals limit their impact on the environment. While carbon off-setting is offered as a way to counter the damage, it is not a solution to climate change. There’s no guarantee your money will end up where you think it should, there's a limit to how many wind farms can be built or forests planted and it provides little incentive for the travel industry to reduce polluting.

Trains are attractive: a Eurostar journey emits 10 percent of the carbon dioxide of flying (although that doesn’t take into account the carbon footprint of one of the biggest construction projects in Western Europe). Eurostar recently commissioned independent research to assess the CO₂ per passenger produced by a London-Paris Eurostar journey versus that emitted by a passenger on a London-Paris flight (www.eurostar.com/ environment). The research looked at actual Eurostar passenger loadings, power consumption and the way its electricity is generated, alongside actual aircraft loadings, fuel consumption and so on. The conclusion was striking: taking the train to Paris instead of flying cut CO₂ emissions per passenger by 90 percent. This is music to the ears of Valérie and Leyla at La Chandoline, who encourage guests to arrive by train and offer free transfers to the nearby TGV-served station at Bellegarde.

The third way, is to combine ferry and car travel. On paper, this looks a bad option, and checking out www.ecopassenger.org (which compares the energy consumption, CO₂ and exhaust atmospheric emissions for planes, cars and trains for passenger transport in Europe) it ranks alongside flying. But there’s more to the equation than meets the eye. “Of course ferries use fuel, but we use it to move vast payloads,” said P&O Ferries spokesman Brian Rees. “Look at our flagship ferries, the Pride of Hull and Pride of Rotterdam - up top, all show bars and restaurants, but down below are massive freight decks. If you take away, say, Easyjet's passengers, they close down. Taking away all our passengers would leave us with the biggest part of our business, the huge freight payload we carry. Remember that 90 percent of the UK's trade is by sea.”

FRANCOFILE

How to get there: Judy Armstrong crossed to France with P&O Ferries (www.poferries.com, tel 08716 645 645). The Jura is well served by train, with a TGV station at Bellegarde (3.5 hours from Paris). The nearest international airport is Geneva, with a Swiss train connection to Les Rousses (near Lajoux).

Where to stay: