Looking across to the hike up to the Col des Audannes 

Link to detailed route page and map click on route title 

The drive up to Col de Sanetsch was much narrower, and more twisting than I remembered. Driving made more difficult by a number of cyclists climbing up the same steep roads. Fortunately we did not come across any traffic going the opposite way. The last time we did this hike, about 9 years ago, we parked a couple of km short of the Pass as we were doing a circular hike. This time we parked at the pass, along with lots of other cars – as this is a major trail head for the tour du Wildhorn (multi-day Hut Hike) it’s not surprising. What was nice is that we didn’t see that many other hikers on the trail and the Audannes Hut was busy but not crowded.

It was perfect hiking temperatures, cool breeze which was nice as we climbed up towards the Arpellistock on the Arête de L’Arpille until our trail diverged to take us along to the Col des Audannes. This Arête is a wonderful ridge walk with great views across to The Diablerets glacier and the Tsanfleuron limestone pavement, which was the start of our ski tour in this area some years back. Lots of small spring flowers were out and there were still a fair few patches of snow we ‘slid’ our way through. Amazingly there were a couple of guys on Mountain Bikes behind us and somehow they managed to get over the col, including man-handing their bikes up ladders! Glad we were well ahead of them on the trail. Great to reach the narrow pass at the top of the Col des Audannes and then make our way down to the Cabane where we had reserved spaces for a couple of nights.

Spent the rest of the afternoon drinking tea, resting in the sun, working out where our hike tomorrow will go (up another steep pass!), and generally hanging out. Now looking forward to dinner. Hungry.

See below a video of our hike followed by a compilation of our photos

Video to insert when complete

 

 

Compilation of photos, press play to view