The Ballon d'Alsace (French pronunciation: [balɔ̃ dalzas]; German: Elsässer Belchen, pronounced [ˈɛlzɛsɐ ˈbɛlçn̩]) (el. 1247 m.), sometimes also called the Alsatian Belchen to distinguish it from other mountains named "Belchen")[1][2][3] is a mountain at the border of Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche-Comté. From its top, views include the Vosges, the Rhine valley, the Black Forest, and the Alps.
A road leads over a pass near the peak at the Col du Ballon d'Alsace, 1,171 m (3,842 ft). The pass is noted as the site of the first official mountain climb in the Tour de France on 11 July 1905,[4] the first rider to the top of the climb being René Pottier and the stage being won by Hippolyte Aucouturier. Stage 9 of the 2005 Tour crossed this pass on the centenary of the original climb.
Ballon d'Alsace features Alpine and Cross Country skiing tracks.
The mountain is part of the so-called Belchen System, a group of mountains with the name "Belchen" (in German) that may have been part of a Celtic sun calendar.
Ballon d'Alsace has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb). The average annual temperature in Ballon d'Alsace is 6.6 °C (43.9 °F). The average annual rainfall is 2,263.6 mm (89.12 in) with December as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in July, at around 14.9 °C (58.8 °F), and lowest in January, at around −1.2 °C (29.8 °F). The highest temperature ever recorded in Ballon d'Alsace was 32.3 °C (90.1 °F) on 24 July 2019; the coldest temperature ever recorded was −19.1 °C (−2.4 °F) on 20 December 2009.