The most beautiful adventures in the Vercors

Majestic, secret and wild, the Vercors is much more than just a mountain range: it is a fascinating territory where unspoiled nature, living traditions and landscapes of rare diversity blend together. Situated between the departments of Isère and Drôme, this vast limestone plateau stretches like a natural balcony between the Rhone Valley and the high peaks of the Alps. Its rugged terrain, alternating between vertiginous cliffs, green valleys and deep forests, is an ideal playground for lovers of wide open spaces and escape.

A land of adventures, but also of memory, the Vercors is marked by a strong history, notably that of the Resistance during the Second World War. It embodies a wealth that is both natural and human, where every corner seems to tell a story. Far from the hustle and bustle of the cities, this massif offers a breath of fresh air, an invitation to slow down, contemplate and reconnect with the essential. Are you ready to be seduced? Welcome to the Vercors, a place where nature and history vibrate in harmony.

The Vercors, a world apart. Seen from its plains between Lyon and Grenoble or between Valence and Grenoble, it gives the impression of an impregnable citadel. At this precise moment, you cannot imagine what you will discover at the end of a few bends.

A plateau! A huge plateau, barred to the east by a high mountain range from the top of which one can enjoy a splendid panorama as from a balcony on the ChartreuseOn belledonneand Oisans.

The plateaus of the North of Vercors

The plateau north of the Vercors, near Grenoble, is dotted with many villages: first Lans en Vercors, Villard de Lans, and Corrençon en Vercors on a first plateau. These villages with their characteristic architecture allow you to perceive, as you stroll through the alleys and glance into the vegetable gardens, that they are villages inhabited year-round with a real mountain tradition. There are certainly second homes, as everywhere, but a visit to the area outside the tourist season leaves no doubt about the activity of year-round life on this plateau. On a second plateau separated from the first by a small wooded hill, you will discover two other villages, inhabited year-round, Autrans and Méaudre, with an even more Nordic atmosphere. Indeed, here the plateau is really very flat and the forests very dark, which makes the place quite wild, especially in winter when it snows. Halfway between the Jura, Lapland and Quebec, when snow covers the plateau and temperatures drop well below zero, a change of scenery is guaranteed.

As you can see, in the Vercors, we don't find these big resorts with buildings but rather traditional villages. There is still, a little away, the ski resort of Villard de Lans, a few kilometers from the town. Lively in season, deserted out of season, its reason for being is the proximity to the ski slopes that descend from the peaks of the Vercors, under the Grande Moucherolle.

We will enjoy strolling through the villages to discover the typical architecture of the Vercors landscape and meet the inhabitants. Many are farmers and breeders, but there are more and more craftsmen and many city dwellers, who work in Grenoble and live on these high plateaus.

To the South, another Vercors

The landscape of the south and west of the Vercors is slowly changing. The villages are smaller, more scattered, like La Chapelle en Vercors. A relatively more Mediterranean air is beginning to reign there very gradually as we approach the Drôme and the Diois. If the northern part of the Vercors, accessible and inhabited, concentrates tourist activities, there are still a lot of high plateaus to explore further south on foot, by pulka, on snowshoes, on cross-country skis, by bike, by mountain bike up to the gates of the Diois. On the side of Font d'Urle and the Col de la Bataille, the green landscape is beginning to thin out, under the effect of the Mediterranean sun and the wind. The Col de Rousset marks the end of these infinite spaces and the beginning of Provence. The journey ends in the Drôme. The slopes that slope to the southern sun are enriched with lavender and other Mediterranean species that are gradually replacing the alpine vegetation. The cicadas and the Mediterranean accent give a warm tone to a landscape that remains extremely harsh.

The entire West of the Vercors is Drômois and Nature offers specific features specific to these limestone landscapes: caves, gorges, vertiginous roads dug into the rock, as if all this were only a defensive wall of the interior plateaus. The road of the Gorges de la Bourne between Villard de Lans and Pont en Royan is striking.

The south-east of the Vercors also has some nice surprises and beautiful landscapes in store. A mountain reminiscent of the Dolomites overlooks the small village resort of Gresse in Vercors set in a vast green plateau. In winter, you can practice downhill skiing on 20km of slopes between 1250 and 1750 meters above sea level, and cross-country skiing on 50km of trails.

Nature in all its contrasts

The Vercors is a land of adventurers. Here, we come to discover, to be overwhelmed by Nature, to live a wild experience, far from civilization, in spaces where solitude is broken only by the rustling of the wind in the branches. Wild, immense, bathed in light. When we cross the Vercors from north to south, we also experience a crossing that takes us from a Nordic landscape to the scents of the Mediterranean.

Winter and summer, the Vercors is an ode to the beauty of wild nature.

If you like the landscapes of the Great North, dog sledding, pulkas, snowshoeing or the effort of cross-country skiing, winter is the time to come.

If you like cycling, mountain biking, hiking on ridges from where you can admire a large part of the Alps, summer is the time to come.

The Vercors is where the sky and the earth touch.

Activities not to be missed in Vercors

Plan a slow stay, crossing the Vercors on the GTV trails (grand traversée du Vercors), or the Viavercors
Do a step into the void at Vertige des Cimes in Lans en Vercors where you will feel like you are hovering above Grenoble.
Test all Nordic activities in Autrans or in Méaudre.
Admire the panorama on the peaks of Dauphiné, and sometimes as far as Mont Blanc from the summit of Molière, from Autrans.
Understanding the Vercors, at the heritage house in Villard de Lans.
Hiking at the top of the Grande Moucherolle to dominate the Vercors plateau, the Ecrins, Belledonne, Grenoble, etc.
To marvel in Choranche cave
Roll on the difficult roads from the Bourne gorges
Browse the highlands from Vercors to the Col du Rousset before heading back towards the Drôme.

The best webcams in Vercors

(click on the name of the village)

Corrençon in Vercors : the valley and the village. The gateway to the wilderness.
Villard de Lans: the highest peaks of the Vercors.
Autrans: very beautiful view of the Autrans plain and the village.
Meaudre: view of the valley and forests around Méaudre.
Lans en Vercors: Magnificent view of Grenoble and the Belledonne mountain range. One of the most beautiful webcams in the region.