Les Diablerets hike: La Palette

My fifth and final Swiss hike was La Palette in Les Diablerets. This is a small mountain town in Vaud that sits at an elevation of 1200m, and shares its name with the snow-covered Diablerets massif that looms over it.

This is my first time using the word massif - I’m finding it quite hard to nail down the meaning. I think it can be more compact than a mountain range? Like a cluster of peaks that sit together on their own. Not a word I see ever in Japan, but since “massif” originates from French maybe its more likely to be used for Diablerets, which is in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

Unlike all of my other Swiss hikes where I hiked a town’s most popular or famous mountain, Les Diablerets is actually best known for Glacier 3000, a gondola that takes you directly up to an elevation of 3000m on one of Diablerets’ peaks. Glacier 3000 is covered in snow and is more of a sightseeing experience than a hiking one.

I say it in every blog post… but I want to hike!

But conveniently, right near by Glacier 3000 is a much smaller 2170m elevation mountain called La Palette. You can imagine there’s good public transport access to a tourist drawcard like Glacier 3000, so this makes for pretty convenient access to La Palette as well.

It’s only a 15 minute bus drive from Les Diablerets to the Glacier 3000 gondola station. From here, you backtrack a little bit and head up the road, following the signposts for Lake Retaud (about a 30 minute walk).

As you climb up, you get a better view of the Diablerets and if you squint, little gondolas travelling across the peaks too.

Once you reach Lake Retaud, you’ll also be able to see the peak of La Palette right in front of you. There is a car park by the lake, so there were a couple of tourists here as well.

Since I was hiking in mid-May, I was a bit worried about the snow - but the peak looked surprisingly snow-free so I felt quite lucky.

Setting out left of the lake, you’ll climb a bit towards La Palette, before turning left and heading around it.

A small stretch of the trail is in the forest, but you’ll you’ll eventually pop out into a large grassy field bordered with mountains.

I could also start to see patches of snow that had not quite melted yet, although luckily it was all stuff I could just walk around.

My plan for today’s hike had been to keep it fairly flexible - if I ran into snow, I would just turn back and just go and enjoy the views up at Glacier 3000 instead. But it seemed like today I would be able to make it to the summit!

The area was pretty exposed so you could tell there was absolutely no one else around. It really felt like I had this mountain all to myself. There’s these huge fields of purple and white crocuses blooming as well.

After I had an early lunch break, I decided to begin my climb up La Palette itself. At first from a distance I was a bit worried because I couldn’t even see a trail and the side of the mountain just looked really steep. But as you approach you can start to see a proper trail heading up it.

The hiking course has you climb up the steeper side of the mountain, before you descend over the other side, which has more of a gentle slope down. Although this climb was a bit of a struggle, I was looking forward to the descent.

But to my dismay, when I reached the summit, the other side had a lot more snow. Considering how snowless the peak had seemed to be from the lake, this was completely unexpected and I’ll admit was a bit of an “oh shit” moment.

I did try and descend down that side for a little bit, in case the snow was only concentrated near the summit, but I couldn’t really see an end to it and decided to just head back down the way I came.

The trail I took up was definitely best done as an ascent path, so the descent was a bit of a hassle, but within about 30 minutes I could see the ski lift come into view which meant I was getting to near the end.

Once off the peak, I had plenty of time, so decided to continue on. La Palette has another course where you can just do a loop around the base of the mountain without actually climbing it. I figured I could just follow that course in a loop and make it back to the lake.

I’ll be honest I felt like a bit of an idiot at this point, considering my plan to hike up and over La Palette had been foiled by the snow, but then I saw marmots!

When I started to see movement on the distant hillside I was scrambling in a panic to get some photos. I had seen the empty marmot enclosure the day before at Rochers de Naye and was disappointed I didn’t get a chance to see them, so it’s pretty funny I managed to spot them the very next day. This was my first time seeing one, and we don’t really have an equivalent on Japanese mountains so it was pretty cool. They sort of of reminded me of beavers.

It was around this time that I saw the first (and only) hikers on the mountain. It was a weekday, which probably partially accounts for how quiet the mountain was (not to mention the snow).

And as I kept walking up along the road, I could see to my right the peak of La Palette (and its less-steep side) and it was completely covered in the snow. I was definitely glad I descended back down the steep way.

So although the loop course doesn’t have you climb Mt Palette, there’s still a decent amount of elevation gain as you go around it. Usually when doing this hike you would either climb Mt Palette or climb along the road - not do both. So I inadvertently gave myself double the elevation gain. Well, it’s good training I guess!

As I kept gaining in elevation, there were more and more patches of snow I had to cross. Eventually I reached the highest point on the loop course, which was just over 2000m, and it was just completely covered in snow ahead, and there really wasn’t a way to tell how long it continued for. At this point, I decided to accept defeat, turn back and retrace my steps back to the lake.

The good thing about this hike is that it’s not too long, so I could backtrack and mess around and not really worry about the time. Being in such an open field felt really relaxing too. Definitely a nice hike to go on while on holiday.

Eventually I came down past the lake, and then back to the gondola station. In total I hiked 12km over 5 hours.

It was about 3pm by the time I finished my hike. I had planned to head up to Glacier 3000 if I had enough spare time, but the last bus of the day was just after 4pm, and so I didn’t think I really had enough time to enjoy it and be back down in time for the final bus. So I decided to give it a miss.

🇨🇭 This concludes my “hiking in Switzerland” blog posts!

I suppose since I equate Switzerland with the Alps, at first I was bit sceptical of what sort of hiking I would be able to do outside of the summer season. But it was unexpectedly fun to be able to try out a bunch of little local mountains. Other than this last hike, the others were only around 2 - 3 hours each, and so it was nice to be able to do a shorter hike and get in some sightseeing on the same day as well. I had a lot of fun!

When to hike La Palette

The recommended hiking season for La Palette is June through September. I was able to squeeze in a hike in mid-May and make it to the summit, but it seems like looking at previous years, even in mid-May the side I climbed was completely still covered in snow, so I think I just got lucky with the warmer temperatures this year.

Hiking course options

There are two possible hiking courses that I found for La Palette:

1. Tour de La Palette
2. La Palette via Isenau

Option 1: Tour de La Palette

So the Tour de la Palette on AllTrails is what I initially set out to try and hike. It’s a loop course including a traverse of the mountain peak. The climb up is steep so it should be done clockwise. This is also available on SwissMobility as Route 109. It’s a 8km course with just under 600m of elevation gain.

I was able to make it up to the peak on this course, before having to backtrack. Usually you can just continue over down the other side and then head back towards the lake.

Option 2: La Palette Tour via Isenau

So this second option on Alltrails starts at Isenau and then does a loop, with the opportunity to do a quick detour to hit the peak of La Palette. This is considered the easier trail because there’s slightly less elevation gain (under 500m) and there aren’t any super steep bits like there is in option 1. You can also do this course starting from the lake instead.

Once I backtracked from option 1, I headed along this hiking path in a clockwise direction. I actually got pretty far - up to the 2035m elevation mark - before I was met with snow and turned back.

Also note the AllTrails course indicates you hike it clockwise, but the comments seem to recommend anti-clockwise. In hindsight though I’m glad I did try option 1 first, because I can imagine if I tried to do option 2 in an anti-clockwise direction, I would have hit snow a lot sooner and would have probably given up on reaching the peak at all.

Public transport access

The nearest point accessible by public transportation is Glacier 3000, so when doing any research you should be figuring out how to get there. From Glacier 3000, it’s a 30 minute walk up a road to get to Lake Retaud where you can actually begin your hike.

If you’re coming from Les Diablerets, the first bus of the day leaves at 09:23 from just outside the station. If you’re coming from Montreux, you can get the train to Les Diablerets via Aigle. The train ride from Aigle is really nice in itself - it’s on a single-track that winds through the mountains. But it only departs once an hour, so you’ll have to be careful not to miss it. It’ll take about 90 minutes from Montreux to Les Diablerets.

If you don’t have a Swiss Travel Pass, you’ll need to pay for the bus fare, which I recommend buying online, as otherwise you’ll need to pay cash to the driver.

From Les Diablerets station, you’ll take a 15 minute bus trip to “Col du Pillon, Glacier 3000”.

For the return trip, the final bus of the day is at 16:09 or 17:09 - I had noted down 17:09, but on the day I realised the last bus of the day was at 16:09, so maybe the timetables change a bit depending on the time of year. If you miss the last bus, it is possible to walk 1 hour or 5km down the road back to town.

In terms of other logistics - there are toilets at the train station, and none at the trailhead. There is a restaurant by the lake and that would be your only option for food. Of course if you visit Glacier 3000, I’m sure they have both food and toilets as well. There is a Coop supermarket that opens at 8am in Les Diablerets so that was pretty handy spot for me to grab breakfast.

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