La Source de l'Ain

The source of the Ain is at the foot of the Nozeroy plateau, in the commune of Conte, at about 800 m altitude. The water gushes out at the exit of a narrow Jura gorge, as a waterfall, in the middle of a forest of broadleaf and conifer trees. It is a Vauclusian-type spring: the water emerges from the depths without turbulence, as an exsurgence.

The Ain, 190 km long, crosses many gorges and waterfalls before flowing into the Rhône, about twenty kilometres from Lyon.

Downstream, in the commune of Bourg-de-Sirod, are the Pertes de l'Ain. The river rushes into a gorge about 2 m wide, 100 m long and 12 to 15 m deep, disappears into a swallow hole, then re-emerges after an underground trip of about fifteen metres into a basin that overflows in a waterfall 17 m wide.

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