Les Paccots: perfect snowshoeing

Virgin snow, bluebird skies and undulating mountain views: there’s hardly a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than going for a snowshoe hike on the trails of Les Paccots. Especially when there’s a friendly buvette along the way to recover from your exertions with a beer and a saucisson-frites. How civilised.

Just half an hour’s drive from Lake Geneva, Les Paccots is a local’s favourite – evident from the amount of cars vying to get into the car park – yet many are here to ski, leaving the snowshoe trails if not empty, then certainly less busy than the slopes packed with families. Neither is it particularly well-known to tourists – these are the hikes that the Swiss have all to themselves.

There are several marked snowshoe trails in the area, of varying levels of difficulty, most of which culminate in a stonking panoramic view to reward you for sweating your way up the hill. The trail to the Niremont (no. 7 on the map) starts from Les Pueys parking and wends its way upwards for several hundred metres of altitude, through forests and deep snow, until it flattens out onto a plateau affording beautiful views of the alps and the lake. Visiting in mid November, we were sadly too early for the buvette to be open (after two hours of walking, the disappointment hit us hard), but the scenery on the loop made up for it.

We were luckier on our return trip to Les Paccots in early January, most definitely in season, when the buvette Le Vuipay, half way round the no. 8 trail, was open and heaving with fellow snowshoers and sledgers who know a good thing when they see one (warm hut, wonderful view, hot soup, red wine).

It’s an hour’s walk (or 90 minutes if you’re suffering from seasonal indulgence disorder) from the La Cuva parking to the buvette, most of it uphill but well worth the trek. Once refuelled, we continued on another short uphill section to reach a lovely panorama in the shadow of the Teysachaux mountain. If you’re feeling lively, you can carry on up the mountain – the makeshift trails zigzagged to its summit – but that’s not an official part of the no. 8 route and given the recent avalanches, we didn’t like to risk off-piste (that’s my excuse anyway).

Instead we headed back down through thick snow and a pretty wooded section to reach the end of the trail just as the sun headed out of sight, casting an orange hue on the sky and the tips of the trees. No more, no less – this walk was just perfect.

Get there: Les Paccots is half an hour’s drive from Lausanne, via Chatel-St-Denis. Pick up a snowshoe trail map at the tourist information office. Snowshoes and sledges can be hired in the village. www.les-paccots.ch