Swimming in the lakes
Gérardmer, Longemer, Blanchemer, Lispach: the range has around thirty lakes, several of them set up for swimming. The water reaches 22–24 °C in July and August, which makes hot days far more bearable than down on the plain. The Gérardmer beaches are supervised in high season.
Hiking
The range is criss-crossed by trails waymarked by the Club Vosgien, one of the oldest hiking federations in Europe. From the chalet, the Mérelle waterfall is a ten-minute walk. Further afield, the Sentier des Roches, the climb to the Hohneck and the tour of the three lakes offer half-day to full-day routes with reasonable ascents.
Family activities
Summer toboggan run and treetop adventure course at La Mauselaine, bike park at La Bresse, the Sainte-Croix wildlife park an hour away, electric mountain bikes for hire in the valley: the Vosges are an accessible playground for children. The Daffodil Festival, held every two years in April, is also worth the detour.
The chalet in summer
The south-west facing terrace catches the sun until evening, the plancha comes out, and the hot tub is a pleasure once the heat has dropped. The full-height windows open the living space onto the valley: this is probably the season when the chalet is at its brightest.
Lakes warm enough to swim in
This is what surprises visitors most: at 22-24 °C in July and August, the water in the Vosges lakes invites you straight in. Gérardmer has three beaches, two of them supervised; Longemer, at 736 metres, has a laid-out beach and a more pastoral feel. Higher in the massif, Blanchemer and Lispach are peat-bog lakes ringed with meadows — no swimming there, but superb destinations for a walk and a picnic. Three formats, three atmospheres, all under thirty minutes from the chalet.
The flora of the chaumes
Above 1,200 metres, firs and beeches give way to the chaumes: broad grassy expanses that give the ridges their distinctive bare outline. This is where the flora becomes remarkable — daffodils in spring, then yellow gentians and arnica in summer, high-altitude species absent from the valley. The Haut-Chitelet altitude garden, two kilometres from the Schlucht, gathers 2,700 mountain plant species from around the world and can be visited in under an hour.
