La Planche des Belles Filles 2.83

La Planche des Belles Filles is a ski station in the Vosges Mountains, in France. It is located in the Haute-Saône département. Since 2012, the climb to the summit has been used during the Tour de France cycle race.Etymology and legendThe name Belles Filles literally means "Beautiful Girls", but is actually derived from the local plant life. The mountain is attested from the 16th century as lieu peuplé de belles fahys, a "place inhabited with nice beech trees" in the local dialect. Belles fahys later became corrupted into Belles Filles, though there remains a nearby village of Belfahy. Meanwhile, Planche, "board", is derived from the nearby small town of Plancher-les-Mines.A folk etymology, in contrast, holds that the mountain took its name from the time of the Thirty Years' War. According to legend, young women from Plancher-les-Mines fled into the mountains to escape Swedish mercenaries as they feared being raped and massacred. Rather than surrender, they decided to commit suicide and jumped into a lake far below. One of the soldiers then took a board on which, with his dagger, he engraved an epitaph for the "beautiful girls". A wooden statue, created by a local artist, is a reminder of the legend.Cycle racingFrom Plancher-les-Mines the climb to the finish at 1035m is 5.9km long, gaining 503m and averages 8.5% with a maximum of 14%, but with a short stretch from 22% to 28% near the finish.