Cornettes de Bise from Valais

As the high country in Switzerland has started to open I've begun to turn my attention to some more ambitious routes in the area:  Grand Muveran, Les Diablerets, Dents de Midi and Cornettes de Bise.  The latter has attracted my attention for a while due to it's prominence in the skyline view from Lausanne.  It's also not glaciated.  I tackled this route from Vionaz, which was actually one train stop earlier than I had hoped.  The ascent was full of nice flora, especially between 1500-2200 m in elevation.

Garmin says:  22 mi with 8560 ft of vertical.  ~ 16% grade average.  I started on the left at Vionaz, climbed up and over the ridge crest at Col de Recon, contoured around Lac d'Avroin over to Col de Verne, summited Cornettes de Bise and descended towards the Lac de Taney and finally back down to Vouvry

Pink Lilly on the climb up ...

... followed by a Chocolate Aquilegia ...

.... and what appears to be a Ghost Orchid.

Obligatory Swiss cow photo.

Signeage was pretty good, except for one spot where I missed a critical right turn and ended up a full drainage off to the left.  As a result I crested the ridge (CH/FR border) at Col de Recon instead of Col de Verne.  The Val de Verne route from Vouvry would surely have been significantly faster.  Nonetheless the jaunt over towards Cornettes de Bise on the French side of the ridge was quite nice.  It included a contour around Lac d'Arvion, which due to its beauty and accessibility was teeming with families.

Contouring over to the Lac d'Arvoin basin

Cornettes de Bise appears in the distance

A nice set of switchbacks gained the shoulder of Cornettes de Bise rather quickly, but I was unfortunately out of water.  I wondered where the the local herd of Boquetin (Ibex) drank from as I finally achieved the summit and descended via the next drainage over, which was probably only passable without an ice axe for the last 2 or 3 weeks.

Cornettes de Bise switchbacks from Col de Verne

Half-tame Bouqetin (Ibex) on the shoulders of Cornettes de Bise

The author on the summit of Cornettes de Bise

Looking back down the ascent route towards Vouvry

The descent route towards Lac de Taney.  I had this basin all to myself for a while

Like many of the higher elevation 'trails' in Switzerland, this one started out terrible.  Tread was almost nonexistent in some places, it would have been faster going up than down due to the rocks.  Finally decent tread started to appear underfoot but I was an hour past desperate for water.  Though I could trickles coming out of snow patches, they never gathered big enough to drink until below the cow pasture, where I treated the water as best as I could with my new Steri-pen.  Hope I worked it right, there were lots of flashing lights.  As an aside, I finally found a portion of a drainage in Switzerland that is not grazed.  They do exist, they are just very small.

Approaching Lac de Taney

Just above Lac de Taney, yes I drank this.