Aire Municipale Lélex

03 · The write-up

What it is like to arrive here.

An aire that is designed to work in winter, which in this region is unusual enough to be the headline. The official Montagnes du Jura listing says the surface is tarmac and it is cleared of snow throughout the winter season, and the two service bornes are frost-proof.

It is described as an aire de services municipale, a municipal service area, at Lélex in the Ain. Maximum stay is seven nights, which is long by French aire standards.

What is actually here

Two frost-proof service bornes with water and drains, eight 16 amp electrical sockets, and a sanitary block with separate men’s and women’s toilets open 24 hours a day. There is a shower, and the shower is not free: 3 euros for 10 minutes, paid by card.

An electrical hook-up and a waste disposal point, plus, on the official listing, water at both bornes, a sanitary block open 24 hours and a paid shower. Take the tourist board as the better guide to what is on the ground.

The only price the official page names is the shower, at 3 euros for 10 minutes by card. It publishes no parking tariff, so if a free night is load-bearing for your trip, call the number on the listing before you count on it.

Where it sits

Lélex is in the Ain, in the Haut-Jura, at the foot of the Crêt de la Neige end of the Jura range and close to the Swiss border above Geneva. The listing places the aire on the bank of the Valserine, a river classified as a “rivière sauvage”, next to the tennis courts.

This is small ski resort and hiking country rather than high alpine country. The roads in are ordinary mountain departmental roads rather than a col with hairpins, but they climb, and in winter they are winter roads. Fit the tires and carry the chains you would carry anywhere else in the Jura in January.

Altitude and season

The listing gives an opening period covering the full calendar year, and unlike most mountain aires in this region the water is meant to keep running: the bornes are described as hors gel, frost-proof.

Two winter conditions come with that. You must park to the plan posted on the board next to the central borne, which exists so the snow clearing can happen around you. And access is reserved to motorhomes and touring vehicles: caravans are sent to the campsite at Chézery-Forens, 12 km away.

A working water point at altitude in February is worth planning a route around in this region, because most of the free layer in the Alps and the Jura does not offer one.

The rule that applies

The seven night limit and the winter parking plan are the commune’s rules, and the sign on the board by the borne is the current version of them. Our French bivouac rules page covers the national position on sleeping in a vehicle in France, and what an aire actually is explains the category. Neither overrides what the commune has posted on site.

Before you rely on this

Read the Montagnes du Jura listing linked below, and call the mairie if the tariff matters, because the official page does not state one for parking. Snow clearing, the winter plan and the shower price are all the commune’s to change.