Rochers de Naye

The Rochers de Naye is a mountain in the Swiss Alps overlooking Lake Geneva near Montreux. It lies on the watershed separating the Rhone and the Rhine. The summit is accessible via a charming cog railway, the highest railway in the canton of Vaud, but we took the other option: on foot!

The route 

We followed the Via Alpina trail (#1 on the Swiss trail system) up from Montreux, and the round trip covered 29km and 1580m of climbing. The first part of the route, just coming out of Montreux, passes through the Gorges du Chauderon.

The Chauderon Gorge

As the route continued up the mountain, we were treated to beautiful Alpine flowers and spectacular views over the lake. There are several activities at the top of the trail, including a marmot sanctuary, a restaurant, accommodation in Mongolian yurts, further walks along the ridge line, and ski slopes in winter.

A Chemin de Montagne

View over Lake Geneva

A good day to launch a paraglider

The steep ascent near the top

The railway station and marmot sanctuary at the top

Furry marmots!

It was a tough day out, but it's always a pleasure to see a new part of the Alps!

Gorges du Durnand

Champex-Lac is the midway point on the CCC route and we spent a couple of nights nearby while Daniel did some training. It is accessed by an incredibly steep and winding road and we discovered that just off the road is a hidden valley with the Gorges du Durnand. The gorge was made accessible in 1877 and is ranked in the top ten most beautiful gorges in Europe!

We have visited a few gorges recently (Aare, Diosaz, Chauderon), but this one was something special. It is accessed by wooden walkways and stairs (330 steps in total) which hang steeply over the raging torrent below. The climb up the 'floating stairs' is an adrenalin-inducing ascent, and even though we completely trust Swiss engineering, we felt the magnetic pull of the water down below! There are 14 cascades along the route accessible to the public, and visitors who make it to the top will be hard pressed to say whether it was the falls or the climb that took their breath away!

Waterfalls and wooden walkways

A very steep climb!

See some of the 330 steps up the side of the gorge

Beautiful cascades plunging into pools

Gorges de la Diosaz

Also near to Les Houches in the Chamonix Valley and well worth a visit is the Gorges de la Diosaz. Visitors make their way up the gorge on a shaded wooden footpath suspended over the river; it feels like walking through a tropical rainforest! It is a riot of bright colours. The green forest and white waterfalls contrast with the black and green schist and the grey and red oxidised rock. There are also natural crystal formations in the steep cliffs.

The paths and bridges were a feat of engineering when they were first built by the owner, Achille Cazin and a local carpenter, Pierre Berthoud in 1875. Numerous information boards along the path explain all these features in detail. This site really is a great way to spend a morning in Chamonix!

Forest trails

Suspended wooden walkways

The Eagle Falls near the top

A natural fallen rock bridge at the top of the gorge

Aare Gorge

One of the highlights of our trip was a visit to the Aare Gorge in the Hasli Valley of the Bernese Oberland. A section of the Aare river carves through the limestone ridge of Kirchet creating a channel between 1m and 30m wide. The gorge has been open to the public since 1889 and is accessed by a long walkway carved into the side of the ridge with short stretches of tunnel. The water is glacial blue and powerfully beautiful.

The gorge has several unusual features along it. A natural feature is the glacier mills, vertical shafts which acted as part of a glacier's internal "plumbing" system carrying meltwater down from the surface. The gorge is an indirect product of glaciation. 10 000 years ago, just as the Ice Age was coming to an end, torrential runoff water from melting glaciers eroded the deep narrow chasm through the limestone barrier. The gorge is only a mile long, but the cliffs on either side are 50m high, interrupted only by these mills.

Note the corkscrew features of the glacier mill

Another unusual feature in the gorge is manmade. On the opposite side of the gorge from the walkways lie two underground caverns from WWII. This military installation was built at the end of 1940. The larger cavern was to be used as a dormitory for 185 officers and soldiers. All the technical equipment was installed in the smaller cavern. Offices, recreation room and dining rooms were installed in a stationary train in the tunnel. It is not known why, but the installations were never used and still exist, hidden and unused in the Kirchet cliffs. The caverns have wood-lined walls, heating, running water, flushing toilets and electricity!

Outside the caverns, carved into the cliff face is the Hasli Eagle, which adorns to official seal, banner and flag of the Haslital. When you get there and see the power of the river carving through the gorge, it makes you appreciate the genius of Swiss engineering. How on earth did they build something like that in that place? And why? It boggles the mind!

The Hasli eagle is on the left, carved into the rock face