Top 10 Natural Monuments around Saint-Jeoire

Intersection Point: La Gouille aux Morts (Pond of the Dead) Altitude 650m Gouille aux Morts: What an ugly name for this charming little pond. Beavers, mallards, herons, and especially frogs take shelter in its tall grass and breed there. The place is calm and peaceful, far from the road to the Vallée Verte (Green Valley), although you can still hear the sounds of traffic. Above it, the Molière à Vachat stream is mirrored in its waters. Its reflection blends with the water lilies scattered there, creating perfect harmony. A delight for the eye of the walker. It's impossible not to think of Monet's "Water Lilies." It is said that, long ago, two stonemasons working at the "Molière," located about fifty meters above, fell to their deaths there on a Sunday (yes, a Sunday...the Lord's Day). See: H. Savoie: Les Molières du Mont Vouan. Or perhaps the pond got its name because a peasant was swallowed up there with his cart...

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It can blow hard up there! I recommend the path that goes down to La Tour from the east

Nice place to take a break but not worth a hike on its own. Nice view of the Rocafort castle less than 10 minutes away on foot. This stone is also located about thirty minutes from the Penaz waterfall which is worth the detour.

The cross means summit of the Brasse mountain

Incredible nature, the river has carved out a passage

Lake Bénit is located at an altitude of 1,452 meters, on the northern slope (ubac) of the Bargy chain, in the Bornes1 massif. It is dominated to the south by the limestone wall of the Bargy chain from where the scree of the Col d'Encrenaz cirque spills out and delimits the south-west shore of the lake. The northwest bank corresponds to the slope of the old glacial basin while the east bank opens onto the valley of the Lac Bénit stream. In 1988, Father Arsène Bourgeaux, ethnographer, in a publication dedicated to the parish, indicated that the lake, “for the inhabitants of the Mont is considered as a sort of founding place where the identity of a population originates” 7. The lake was the subject of processions by the populations of Marnaz and Mont-Saxonnex, on Saint Claude's Day, in order to protect the villages from flooding. The lake benefited from developments in the early 1960s, notably with the raising of the lake level, which made it possible to double its surface area7. The inauguration took place on July 11, 19657. A mass was improvised by priest Claude Scherantz. Lake Bénit is the subject of many legends. One of them relates that the fairies came to bathe there and were at the origin of the production of butter and tomme in the town. A second legend says that an episcopal ring is found in the lake9. Following a deadly avalanche, the bishop of the diocese is said to have gone “in a grand procession” to bless the lake and to have thrown “his episcopal ring into the waves asking heaven that such a catastrophe never happens again”9. Another version says that the object was so heavy that it fell into the lake at the time of the blessing9. According to this legend, an avalanche emptied the lake and flooded Marnaz below4. Finally Alphonse Favre (en) reports that “this lake is due to a collapse in which a fir forest disappeared. As for the time, it can only be established in a very doubtful manner, by the fact that an old man from the village of Brezon assured, around 1845, that this event had happened in his father's youth. »1

Pointe des Brasses is a summit of Haute-Savoie located in the Chablais massif, straddling the municipalities of Saint-Jeoire and Viuz-en-Sallaz, and culminating at 1,503 meters above sea level. Les Brasses is a toponym from a mountain pasture located above Viuz-en-Sallaz2. It could derive from the German Brache, which designates fallow or fallow land2,3, or from the Old German braka meaning “clearing”3. It is possible that it also derives from the Latin bracchium3 (“arm”), referring to the arms of the river, three of which have their source in Brasses: the Menoge, the Entreverges and Airets streams. In June 2013, a cross made by students from the Viuz-en-Sallaz Catholic Automobile School was erected on its summit. Six meters high, it is made up of 33 metal cubes measuring 30 centimeters on each side, assembled on site and arranged in a spiral by the students themselves. She was blessed on July 7, 2013 by Mgr Boivineau, Bishop of Annecy.