At this time, we hear of sheep raising. Afterwards, the sheep were to give way to milking cows. It is from this period onwards (mid-13th century) that a hard cheese called Serac was made.

At the foot of the Crêt de la Neige, we can see, as in other sectors of the Jura range, the ruins of a mountain pasture village run as a community in the 14th and 15th centuries by the inhabitants of the hamlets in the Gex plain. These are the oldest traces of using the mountains.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, profound changes came about in the way the high mountain pasture was run owing to the development of the technique for making Gruyère cheese. The summer pasture chalet then sat alone in the middle of the stately scenery. Rounds of hard cheese, like gruyère, were made thanks to the supply of a much greater quantity of milk from a growing herd. The mountain pasture was at its peak.

Click on the picture to zoom it

From the 19th to the 20th centuries, with the appearance of the cheese dairies in the plain, cheese making took place in winter in the dairies and in summer in the summer pasture chalets.

From the 60s onwards, cheese making was to gradually fall into decline until it was abandoned completely. The last round of Comté cheese was to come out of the chalet de la Chenaillette in 1986. Today, the summer pasture chalets are still in use but Comté cheese is no longer made there.

The heifers are taken up to La Maréchaude. The milking cows are taken up to the chalet de la Chenaillette and their milk is then taken to the cheese dairy in the plain. At the chalet du Crozat the whole herd goes up to the summer pasture (cows, calves and heifers). The calves are raised on their mother's milk.