I’d planned to meet Steve (Mountain River Adventures) at Pierre de Moëlle near Leysin for some rock climbing there but when I arrived it was pretty clear it was going to be too cold to be very much fun. I know the area a little but I wasn’t sure where would be substitute location with some shelter from the weather, an obvious choice was right back down on the Rhone valley floor but it seemed a long way to go back down. But I also know Roger Payne, IFMGA guide and local Leysin resident so I called him and found him at Geneva airport on route for an expedition in Sikkim, he suggested Les Plans just near Leysin which was ideal.

Ideal in weather and shelter but oddly competitive for grades, I’m pretty tall but I was struggling to reach on the routes while Steve just dynoed for a couple of moves.

Although it was sunny just as we started to climb really the weather wasn’t too good, high winds shut the main telecabine all day and it was a bit wild in places climbing up. The descent was pretty good with some mixed but generally good snow.

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Above : Self portrait in the reflective glass of the Kuklos restaurant at Leysin

Leysin is an access point to a small range of gray limestone mountains where glacial erosion has created some cirques. The plan was to get a boost from Leysin at 1315m to the Berneuse at 2035m and take a tour round the “Tours”, the “Tours” being Tour d’Aï, Tour de Mayen and an ascent of the Tour de Famelon before dropping to Pierre du Moëllé and returning to Leysin.

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Above Left: Looking over the Riondaz towards the Mt Blanc massif
Above Right: cloud over the end of Lac Leman and views in the Portes du Soleil

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Above Left: zooming into the Mt Blanc massif
Above Right: looking towards the Tour d’Aï and Tour de Mayen

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Above Left: snow cannon work
Above Right: crossing under La Moëllé

Presumably what every ski station wants for Christmas is snow but they’re all hedging their bets with new cannons, it’s been a boom year for new cannon installations judging from the places I go to.

There’s a path in the centre of those rocks ! It’s not much more obvious when you’re on it, just a steep gully with some fixed chains to descend.

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Above Left: Tour de Famelon
Above Right: Tour de Famelon

Just a short pause for breath on the climb up to the Famelon. The two people making a descent on the right were some of the only people I saw most of the day.

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Above Left: from Tour de Famelon
Above Right: from Tour de Famelon

Some spectacular views up here, in the very far distant on the left you can just see the Jura and in front of La Moléson. On the right image at Chateau d’Oex and Rougemont are visible.

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Above Left: views to Les Diablerets
Above Right: hidden path

There’s a couple of places where the path seems to vanish, in the case it dived down a steep slope.

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Above Left: another view of Moléson
Above Right: looking back at the Tour de Famelon

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Above: Looking down on Lac de l’Hongrin

This is the same lake we’d walked to a few days ago from La Lecherette, in fact the Tour de Famelon is visible on the first photo in that blog entry .

There’s a handful more photographs in the gallery.

Leysin’s a pretty small place so I was surprised not to actually see anyone I knew although it was pretty cold and I maybe should have made a more vigorous search of the bars and restaurants.

They’re pretty well organized over at Leysin you can park on the outside of the village and get a free bus to the lift, if you want to park next to the lift you have to pay which I thinks a good idea.

Conditions are still very good, it’s a bit hard packed in places but I’d put a fresh edge onto my Zags before leaving this morning so, although they’re not the ideal ski for hard pack, they were handling pretty nicely.

It’s still very cold so by 4:30pm I have to say I’d had enough, it was just too cold on the chairlifts to be comfortable.

I went home over the Col des Mosses rather than hit the traffic at Glion coming from the Valais/Verber direction, as it was snowing heavily this was a bit exciting and I was sliding around in the car a bit, even back down round Chateux d’Oex and through to Bulle was pretty wild and it didn’t ease much on the autoroute round Lac Gruyere.