AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Rising to 208 metres above the quiet hills of the Boulonnais, Mont Pelé is the highest point in France's Pas-de-Calais department and one of its most rewarding little-known panoramas. On a clear day the view stretches all the way to the white cliffs of England; on a less ambitious day, it still sweeps over the town of Desvres, the chalk slopes and the forested shoulders of Mont Hulin next door.↗↗
This isn't a manicured viewpoint but a rehabilitated chalk-and-marl quarry now managed as a sensitive natural site by Eden 62, the Pas-de-Calais conservation authority. Signposted woodland staircases, boardwalks and a short road tunnel lead you up to the summit, while wild orchids, grazing sheep and Highland cattle do the rest of the work.↗↗
From Chalk Quarry to Wild Hillside
For more than a century, this hillside was anything but wild. Mont Pelé and its twin, Mont Hulin, were worked as a marl chalk quarry from 1873 to 1979 by the Société des Ciments Français, the extraction pits cut by hand with picks and shovels and the slopes carved into terraces. When the quarry closed, the scarred landscape was reshaped and, in the decades since, nature has been quietly reclaiming it. Today, the roughly 62-hectare site is preserved as an Espace Naturel Sensible by Eden 62 on behalf of the department.
