Petit Ballon, Mountain summit in Haut-Rhin, France.
Petit Ballon is a mountain summit in the Vosges range, located in the Haut-Rhin department of Alsace, France. The peak sits between the Munster Valley to the west and the Alsatian Plain to the east, with open pastures and forest covering the slopes around it.
Monks from the Munster monastery started making cheese on the mountain pastures in the 7th century. That activity gradually shaped the farming culture of the area and gave rise to the farm-inns that still operate on the slopes today.
The farm-inns near the top still make cheese the old way, and visitors can buy it directly from the producers. The working farms on the slopes give the place a lived-in feeling that is rare on a mountain summit.
The summit can be reached on foot from several starting points, and a parking area lower on the slope makes access straightforward. In winter the path can be icy, so proper footwear is worth having before you set out.
The Petit Ballon is part of a group of peaks known as the Belchen system, which some researchers believe was used as a Celtic solar calendar. The mountains in this group align in a way that may have helped early people track the sun at key points in the year.
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