3 days of winter bivouacking following the ghost of Jura.

Registration is considered firm and final after payment of a deposit of 30% of the total price and acceptance of the specific terms of sale.

The balance must be paid no later than 45 days before the departure date.

See our specific terms of sale for full details.

In the event of cancellation by the traveller, the following fees apply:

• Plus de 60 jours avant le départ : 40 % du prix total (acompte retenu)
• Entre 60 et 30 jours avant le départ : 50 % du prix total
• Moins de 30 jours avant le départ : 100 % du prix total

We strongly recommend taking out cancellation insurance. See our specific terms of sale for full details.

Our adventures take place in France: a valid national identity card (or passport) is all you need. No visa or entry formalities required, and no mandatory vaccinations.

Keep an identity document with you during your stay. Travelers coming from abroad should check their entry requirements for France with the authorities of their country of residence.

Our micro-adventures take place in France. Liability insurance and mountain rescue and assistance coverage are highly recommended — they are often already included with a bank card, a FFME / FFCAM membership, or your home insurance.

For fixed-date group departures, consider cancellation insurance. If in doubt, your Captain will guide you toward the coverage best suited to your activity (hiking, bivouacking, climbing, ski touring, etc.).

Your captain – Captain Rémi

Required level

• Physical effort : accessible to all
• Technical prerequisites : none
• Audience : stay reserved for adults

Accommodation

• Type : bivouac
• Organisation : large communal yurt for meals and nights under tent
• Comfort : water point, portable showers, dry toilets

• Departure confirmation: at the latest 7 days before the stay date

• Departure confirmed: from 4 registered participants

• Small group, big adventures. We intentionally limit the adventure to 6 participants. Because in the forest, especially in winter, the fewer of us there are, the better we observe, the less we disturb and the more we enjoy the experience.

• Sales closure: up to 3 days before departure, subject to availability

• Meeting point 11:00 AM Vallorbe Train Station

• Return 4:30 PM Vallorbe Train Station

The adventure in a nutshell

For three days, we immerse ourselves in the winter forests of the Jura, snowshoes on our feet and pulkas in our wake.

Our guiding thread: the boreal lynx.

But we're not about to chase after it with binoculars in hand. The lynx loves tranquility, and so do we. So we take time to understand its territory, to search for its tracks, to interpret the clues left in the snow and to discover all the wild life around it.

And since three days outdoors deserve a minimum of comfort, we bring everything we need to transform a snowy corner of forest into a small winter camp: cold-weather gear, hot meals and a communal tent where we can gather sheltered around a coffee, soup or a lynx story that's just a bit too good to be entirely true.

An adventure halfway between winter expedition, bivouac and nature immersion.

No stopwatch. No performance. And no obligation to eat freeze-dried noodles in the dark.

Why go?

Because in winter, the mountains tell many stories.

Snow keeps tracks. Animals become more discreet. Landscapes change completely and every passage becomes a clue.

For three days, we learn to slow down enough to start noticing everything that usually passes right under our noses.

A deer's hoofprint.
A fox's trail.
A marked tree.
A passage between two cliffs.
And sometimes, that famous big round paw that immediately raises the group's excitement level several notches.

But this adventure is also the simple pleasure of living outdoors in the middle of winter.

Pulling your pulka through the snow, setting up camp before nightfall, preparing a hot meal, gathering under the communal tent while it snows outside and waking up the next morning in the heart of the forest.

In short, getting a small head start on Monday morning for a few days.

Observe without disturbing

Searching for tracks doesn't mean following animals to their doorstep.

Winter is a particularly sensitive period for wildlife. Cold, snow and scarce food force animals to conserve their energy. An unnecessary escape can cost them much more than it appears.

During the stay, we therefore adopt a deliberately discreet and respectful approach.

We learn to read tracks without systematically following them, to observe from a distance, to recognize situations where it's better to turn back and to choose our routes and bivouac sites taking into account the presence of wildlife.

Some tracks will invite us to continue the investigation.

Others will simply tell us: "someone lives here, let them be."

And knowing how to make this distinction is fully part of the adventure.

Our goal is never to provoke an encounter, to flush out an animal or to get as close as possible. We seek instead to understand wildlife while leaving as few traces as possible of our own passage.

Because ultimately, the most beautiful observation is sometimes the one where the animal will never even know we were there.

Will we see a lynx?

We'd prefer to warn you right away: the lynx hasn't signed a contract with Hunawé.

And thankfully.

Directly observing a wild lynx remains exceptional. It's a discreet animal, mainly active when we're much less so and capable of moving through an enormous territory while almost never being seen.

So our objective is different.

We will learn to detect its presence.

Footprints, trails in the snow, regular passages, terrain, hunting zones, prey remains and other clues: we discover how naturalists follow and study an animal we rarely see, while remaining attentive to never turning this search into a disturbance.

And that's precisely what makes the search exciting.

Because when we find a fresh track in the snow, we may not see the lynx...

but we know it was there.

And suddenly, the forest looks quite different.

What fitness level do you need?

You don't need to have trained for the Grande Odyssée.

The stay is above all an immersion and observation adventure, not a race against time.

We progress on snowshoes, across snowy terrain, with an individual or shared pulka containing some of the collective and personal equipment.

This still requires good physical condition and the habit of walking for several hours during the day.

Snow can be deep, terrain rolling and, as is often the case in the mountains in winter, conditions can transform a gentle climb into a diplomatic negotiation with your thighs.

However, the pace is adapted to the group and leaves real room for observations, breaks and nature discoveries.

Sleep outdoors in winter? Really?

Yes.

But not with that old Décathlon sleeping bag you found in your parents' attic.

The equipment used is designed for winter bivouacking and cold temperatures: appropriate tents, insulating mats, cold-weather sleeping gear and camp organization designed for comfortable living outdoors for several days.

We also carry a communal tent, our collective living space.

That's where we gather to prepare meals, have hot drinks, discuss the day's observations and enjoy a sheltered space when weather conditions become a bit too... Jurassian.

So the idea isn't to survive three days in the snow.

The idea is to learn to live there comfortably.

And that's very different.