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Journal · SportsThe GTJ at Foncine: a whole house instead of the staging gîte
By Robin — your host · sources at the end · 12 July 2026 · updated 10 October 2026 · 2 min read · Our method
The Grande Traversée du Jura passes through Foncine-le-Haut, 10 min by road from Foncine-le-Bas. To sleep there, there are two formulas: the staging gîte you leave every morning, or a whole house you come back to every evening. Jura 835 is let to one group, for 6 to 8 people, and serves as a base camp on the trail.
Moving on or base camp
According to Jura Tourisme, the cross-country GTJ runs for 185 km and takes 7 days of travelling. That is the staging-gîte logic: you move on each day and sleep where the trail stops. A whole house serves another plan, radiating out. You set up camp for several nights, ski the GTJ in loops or out-and-backs from Foncine-le-Haut, and in the evening you find your own bed and dry kit.
What the staging gîte offers
The staging gîte has real strengths: a bed at the end of each stage, a meal served, the company of other skiers and, often, luggage transfer between stages. For a full crossing from one end of the range to the other, it is the natural formula. The house suits a group better when it wants to ski several sections without carrying a pack, keep the same room all week and pick the best-snowed sector each morning.
The door that shuts
What the dormitory shares, the house gives back: a room per family, a table to linger at, sleep that nobody walks through. Kit dries by the stove, poles stay in the hall. You shut the door, and the only sound left is the wind in the spruce. In the morning, nobody stuffs a pack in a hurry to free a bed before the next skiers arrive.
Recovering at your own pace
The kitchen follows your timetable, not that of a shared sitting: a very early breakfast for a long section, a late dinner if snow stretched the day. On bad-weather days you cut short without losing anything, since nobody waits for the group at the next stage. And the nearby area has shorter loops, set out in our page on the nordic area.
A training week
For a group training for a race, the house lets you link sessions and recovery without changing beds: the cross-country camp in a private house explains how to organise the week. Those aiming for the range’s great ski marathon will find the lodging options in where to stay for the Transjurassienne.
The house, after the trail
Jura 835 rents whole, to a single family or group: 3 bedrooms and a study, 2 bathrooms, all on one level, which tired legs appreciate after a stage. The stove dries the boots while the long table holds tomorrow’s map. The rate is per house, not per bed. Write to us with your stage dates.