Visit Les Diablerets & Glacier 3000
I had the fortune to visit Les Diablerets for a conference, and had enough time to do some sightseeing. Sadly, the weather didn’t quite help, so I couldn’t visit all the places I wanted in the time I had, but I already had the chance to explore some of the most beautiful attractions of Les Diablerets, including the famous Glacier 3000.
Les Diablerets
Les Diablerets is a mountain village situated at an altitude of 1200 m. It rather small, but has everything one needs, since it’s quite a touristic place. There’s a church from 1396, and a couple of small local museums. There’s also a Coop and a Denner (supermarket chains), and even a small disco! While the village is scenic and certainly worth walking around, the real highlight of this place is the nature.
Visiting Glacier 3000
The Glacier 3000 is an outstanding way of enjoying the Alpes Vaudoises. One can take bus 180 from downtown to reach the cable car base. From there, it’s a spectacular drive up in two cable cars to reach the top. There’s multiple activities one can do once there. One of the most popular ones is crossing the Peak Walk by Tissot, a suspension bridge that connects two peaks at over 3000 m of elevation. The views are absolutely stunning!
If you get too cold, you can get into a building designed by Mario Botta, which serves as restaurant, gift store, and viewing platform. Else, one can also ski, do a snowshoe hike, and, in summer, take a toboggan. Plenty of fun activities to do, which make the visit really worth it. It comes at a steep price though, the tickets are 89 CHF.
Hike to Cascade du Dar
This hike has the great advantage of starting directly from town. I started following the river Grande Eau towards the mountains and soon enough it brought me to a hiking route. There’s a small suspension bridge crossing the river, and after that the path goes on the side of the river, at a bit of a height. It’s quite a flat hike until the end, closer to the waterfall, where it climbs up. Unfortunately, I had to turn back 1 km before reaching the waterfalls, as the sessions were starting, but I’d love to finish it if I ever come back. The total route is approx. 9 km, and it takes around 3 h to complete.
Hike to the Lac Retaud
This hike I had the chance to finish! With a newly made conference friend, we took the bus to drop us at the Glacier 3000 bus stop. The hike starts behind the parking lot, which because of the rains that week was wet and muddy. The fist part was quite steep, and the mud clearly didn’t help, so we had some doubts whether we’d reach the lake. However, we soon reached a more grass-filled area, so we could find firmer terrain. It also started snowing, which made the lake views at the top super special! A little bit cold due to the snowfall, we returned to the bus stop through the car road, doing a total of around 3 km.
One can extend the hike until Arnensee, but that’s a full day 14 km hike – much better for a vacation stay than a conference quick walk. Once in the bus stop, we could hide in the waiting room of the cable car, as the temperatures had dropped significantly. Totally worth it, thought!
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