The Ballon d’Alsace German: Elsässer Belchen (el. 1247 m.), or Alsatian Belchen, 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,[1] 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. 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.