We spent the weekend in Autrans, a cross-country skiing, biathlon, and ski jumping center on the Vercors plateau. We left Grenoble early on Saturday morning to go for a hike to Le Plateau de Molière. We started from Villeneuve (1108m), some 3.5km north of Autrans, and climbed up to la Molière (1632m) in an hour.
This shabby abandoned creature greeted us at the trailhead.
From La Molière we walked the alpine pasture further South descending about 100 meters.
These flowers looked in the sunshine like they were of silver.
Then we climbed back up to Pas de Bellecombe (1636m). From there we had a slight ascent to 1676 meters, before turning sharply downhill and back to Villeneuve. On our way we indulged in wild raspberries; there were tons of them — actually some hikers had come with baskets to pick them. 
The real reason why we visited Autrans was the French Summer championships in cross-country skiing. On Friday they had had sprint competitions and on this Saturday afternoon they had “prologs” (qualifiers or time trials) for Sunday’s pursuit. U16, U18, U20, and senior women started the afternoon race, which mostly ran downtown Autrans. 
They were followed by U6, U18, and U20 men, who attracted a little more spectators.
Finally senior men finished in the early evening.
On Sunday we left for an early morning run. It was quite chilly at 7am. Because Google Maps does not show profiles for pedestrian routes, we did not realize how steep the planned trail was, and how high it took us. The first gentle climb took us to Notre Dame des Neiges.
Not so gentle and much muddier climb took as past another heard of dames.
Since the climb took us more time than we had expected we cut the run short and turned back, and took a shortcut back to town via the ski jumping hills. If that does not give you vertigo, what does!?
The pursuit races started in the town and finished after a long climb in the woods. We missed the women’s race but got out to see the passing U18 and U20 men on the uphill.
The finish line.
And finally the senior men.
After a long walk back to the town we were lucky to find a place for lunch: the Summer menu at this place offered an Indian pizza and a Summer salad. It is complete mystery to us how these people in this region are so slim, when their diet mainly consists of cheese, cream, butter, potatoes, and bacon. 
Podiums before we leave the town. Here are the senior women.
And then the senior men; Robin Duvillard won gold and Maurice Manificat came in second; these two national team members were the only skiers we recognized by name.
Given the number of participants in these races it seems that cross country skiing is not dead in France. See you next year in Lahti!