Salève

The Salève (salɛv), or Mont Salève, is a mountain of the French Prealps located in the department of Haute-Savoie in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. It is also called the "Balcony of Geneva" (French: Balcon de Genève). Geographically, the Salève is a mountain of the French Prealps located in the Haute-Savoie department, but geologically a part of the Jura chain, as the Vuache is. Below the Salève is the Geneva urban area where more than 700,000 people live. The Salève consists of the Pitons, Grand Salève and Petit Salève; it culminates at 1,379 metres at the Grand Piton. It is accessible via the Téléphérique du Salève, a cable car, since 1932 (rebuilt in 1983). The Salève stretches between Étrembières in the north and the suspension bridge of La Caille in the south. Between 1892 and 1935, the Salève was served by the first electric rack railway in the world (Chemin de fer du Salève). The eastern side of the Salève dives under the molasse of the Bornes Massif while the abrupt mountain slope facing Geneva is subject to erosion. The vegetation – or the absence thereof – enhances the limestone's layers. This side of the mountain is slit by several narrow and deep gorges, among which the Grande Varappe, which at the end of the 19th century gave its name to the activity of rock climbing in French. This discipline developed intensely there, at a time when it was only beginning. The Monnetier Valley, separating the Petit and Grand Salève, is due to glaciary erosion. Modern geologists now think that this valley was dug by the subglaciary currents in a fissured region between the Petit and Grand Salève and not by the Arve as was assumed earlier. Between 12,000 and 10,000 BC, the Salève hosted a magdalenian site. From 1833, Genevan physician François Isaac Mayor, then Minister Taillefer, as well as dentist Thoily explored the mountain's past. The cliff near Veyrier turned out to be a prehistoric shelter. Bones (partridge, reindeer, horse, marmot amongst others), flint and engraved wood were found in dozens of places including caves, shelters and settlements.