The Great Dune of Pilat (Pyla)

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The Grande Dune du Pilat is the largest sand dune in Europe and is located on the Atlantic coast just south of Arcachon. Although there were always some dunes in the area, the Dune of Pilat formed between 1826 and 1922. During that period it grew from 20 metres to a height of 110 metres. As the years go by, it is crawling away from the coast and covering the forest of the Landes. It has already engulfed a number of houses and roads over the years and has proved itself to be more powerful than any attempts by humans to control it. Obviously, it has become a fantastic tourist attraction and is visited by more than a million people every year.

The parking lot tells you that 30 minutes are free but if you stay longer, you have to pay 4€ for the day. This is funny because it already takes about 20 minutes to walk to the dune from the car park.



There are numerous snack bars and souvenir shops along the way.



And then you begin to see it.





The sand is really fine and you sink into it quite deeply when you try to walk on it, so the stairs are an excellent idea.









It is really quite huge.





There are sand banks off the coast that provide more sand to the dune whenever the wind blows.



The pine trees really don't stand a chance.

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Some people seem to commune with the dune and go wandering off alone. But the dune does kill people from time to time, so you're not going to catch me doing this.



When the sand starts to make a move on a house, the people in it have about 5 years to get the hell out of it.











The fiberglass stairs have to be repositioned regularly as the sand moves.











Oh, those school groups! "We're not going up the stairs! That's for old people."









And then I headed back to the car.





bicycles for rent

It doesn't require a long visit, but it is definitely worth seeing. It is also served by a municipal bus line from Arcachon for people who don't have a car. As for the name, it is "Pilat" but it is right next to the town of "Pyla" so the two are often confused. Even on road signs, you will often see "dune du Pyla" instead of "dune du Pilat." In another 50 years, everybody will agree that it should be Pyla, which is a more poetic spelling anyway.

[htmb]

"...they suffer from trampling." It's nice to see a sign designer with a wry sense of humor.

This certainly demonstrates the power of nature and is another place I'd like to visit. I sure wouldn't wish to own a house too nearby!

[htmb]

From your photos it was obvious the dune was quite large, but I had no idea how much shoreline it coverd until looking at google maps. Amazing!

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Yes, a few years ago I'd heard about the dune and looked it up on google maps. It's astounding. I suppose there will be a desert in Southwestern France eventually.

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What's kind of funny is how totally tiny it is compared to the complete oceans of sand dunes in the Sahara, the Gobi, parts of South America and Australia, or even the United States. But the fact that it is weirdly all by itself is what makes it so interesting.

[mossie]

Very interesting. I think sand dunes are complex things formed by the wind. Snow can act in a similar manner. The wind blows the sand grains along and over the ridge of the dune so it can form quite a sharp crest as the sand falls out of the windstream into still air. The sand also becomes graded and also rounded by abrasion, so that the smaller and lighter particles are at the top, this is why walking and climbing is so tiring.
Quite menacing to think that they are dynamic and will swallow everything in their path, see this old shot of an Egyptian funeral monument constructed in the 19th century

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Indeed, just about all of the things that people go to see in Egypt had to be dug out of the sand.

[bixaorellana]

I've really studied this thread trying to take it all in. Your photo captioned "It is really quite huge" finally brought home to me how vast the thing is. Is it all grown from the sand banks, or is there something else that adds to it? Also, you say that the dune kills people from time to time. How so, please? Excellent bunch of photos of something that can't be that easy to photograph.

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All of the sand has just blown in from the sand banks over the years. As for killing people, the sand is extremely fine and also very steep on the forest side. Sometimes a visitor can unleash a sand slippage just like an avalanche and get swallowed up.

[Luis]

That is a very impressive pile of sand.

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I learned something very interesting on the evening news. 65% of the dune was owned by 250 different people, so the government finally initiated an expropriation and compensation procedure to take full control of the dune and the forest. After all, the owners could do absolutely nothing with what they owned and yet each owner had to give authorisation for the installation of the stairs to the top. Starting next year, the government will own the entire dune and the surrounding forest and also the parking lot. It will be interesting to see what sort of plans they have for additional development.

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There was another article about buying back the dune area in the Sunday paper. It mentioned how painful it was for some of the owners to part with their land, which had sometimes been in the family since the 15th century and which narrowly avoided being confiscated during the French revolution. Most of the owners are getting "just enough to buy a two bedroom flat in Bordeaux" but are retaining a few rights such as the use of their beach cabins. The 13 shop and restaurant operators are particularly upset because even though they have just been renting the spaces, they could sell the lease for a huge amount when they wanted to move on. With the government as landlord, there will be no more selling of leases.

The last big hurdle is repossessing the parking lot, which is the principal gold mine, but it should be done by the end of the year.