France scenic viewpoint
Pas de Bellecombe-Jacob
You can see 228 km from here, looking north-east.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 228 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 228 kmFarthest ridgelooking north-east
- 95%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 11%Seaof the circle where the horizon is the sea
- 8Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 2,316 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 8 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are from August to November.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Janwest36 min before the sea-level sunset40%
- Febwest32 min before the sea-level sunset43%
- Marwest36 min before the sea-level sunset44%
- Aprwest46 min before the sea-level sunset51%
- Maynorth-west48 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Junnorth-west46 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Julnorth-west48 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Augwest50 min before the sea-level sunset53%
- Sepwest42 min before the sea-level sunset56%
- Octwest34 min before the sea-level sunset56%
- Novwest36 min before the sea-level sunset56%
- Decsouth-west34 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Pas de Bellecombe-Jacob.
Mountain pass in Réunion, Indian Ocean
Pas de Bellecombe-Jacob is a scenic viewpoint in France, 2,316 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 228 km away, looking north-east.
The sea fills 11% of the horizon.
8 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Piton de la Fournaise (2,621 m), 3 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 95% of the circle.
The skies are clearest from August to November.

Get there and stay
- Aire de bivouaccampsite · 7.6 km · 3 within 10 km
- Gîte du Volcanplace to stay · 0.6 km · 9 within 10 km
- La Plaine-des-Palmistesnearest town · 12 km in a straight linePlaces to stay in La Plaine-des-PalmistesBooking.com · sponsored link↗
- Saint-Pierre Pierrefonds Airport (ZSE)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 30 km in a straight lineCar hire at RUN airport (Sainte-Marie)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.

Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 25other viewpoints within 5 kmMorne Langevin, Cratère Commerson, Nez Coupé de Sainte-Rose and 22 more
- 61named peaks within 5 kmCratère Commerson, Morne Langevin, Cratère Maillard 1966 and 58 more
- 2marked trails within 3 kmGR R2, Sentier du Cratère Dolomieu
- 1shelters and huts within 5 kmAbri
- 5car parks within 3 km
- 3campsites within 10 kmAire de bivouac, Aire de bivouac Cap Blanc, Gîte de la Rivière des Remparts
- 9places to stay within 10 kmGîte du Volcan, Gîte de la Rivière des Remparts, Le Mahavel and 6 more
- cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
- visitor centres within 5 km
- restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Pas de Bellecombe-Jacob, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Other viewpoints nearby.
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q3367142) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Islandyas, Forestyas, Canyonyas, Cavernyas, Cascadyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.






