Two-Day Trip to Canton Valais: Euseigne Pyramids and Val d'Hérens

Saturday October 5, 2024 -- This day promised to be very beautiful in Canton Valais, and since we hadn't been there in several months, we decided to go for the weekend. Spending a night there (in this case in a favourite hotel in Brig) means we could travel further, as we have mostly exhausted the hikes we can do as a day-trip without having to travel four hours or more each way.

We decided on a valley called "Val d'Hérens" (a side valley of the Rhône Valley just south of the city of Sion and the origin of the special breed of black "fighting cows" called the Vaches d'Hérens, or Hérens Cattle), as there were some interesting geographical features called the Earth Pyramids of Euseigne (one of Switzerland's most important geological sites and a protected monument) at the junction of the Héremence Valley. Our plan was to walk an 8-km themed trail called "Chemin d'Ossana" on the east side of the valley, crossing a 130-meter long suspension bridge, from where we were supposed to get an extraordinary view of the pyramids. We would then have continued right to see the pyramids close up, in total a 12-km (3½ hours) hike with very little uphill.... something we should easily complete.

Unfortunately for us, our train south to the Lötschberg tunnel experience technical difficulties, and we missed our bus connection, causing a one-hour delay on an already 4½ hour trip. Which means we started only at 12:30, and the pyramids, as well as the town of Euseigne were already in shadow before we even got there. 

So instead of continuing to the pyramids, we took a bus all the way to the back of the valley to the town of Les Haudères where there was still sunshine, and admired the lovely wooden Valais houses and the fabulous mountain backdrop. THIS is where we should have gone for the day! A plan for another time, then... 

After passing through the Lötschberg Base Tunnel to Visp, we head westward along the Rhône Valley to Sion, past all the wonderfully terraced vineyards.  

This is the beautiful Valère Castle and Cathedral which towers over the city of Sion. 

From Sion we head into the Val d'Hérens along the east side of the valley. This is a view over the city of Sion. 

Vineyards apparently do well here on the steep hillside at the entrance to this gorge. 

The bus route ends at Nax, but we got off here in a village with a pretty name: Vernamiège. It's about 150 meters higher than where the "Chemin d'Ossona" starts, so we thought we'd start here and look at the village before heading down the mountainside. Across the valley is the mountain town of Hérémence and the entrance into the Val d'Hérémence. 

Looking at the interesting buildings in Vernamiège. We got here about 12:20, a bit late for starting a hike, unfortunately. 

Village of Vernamiège

Interesting window art!

Main street in Vernamiège. We have to have a look at the church, of course. 

The inside of the church wasn't particularly special, but there was an unlocked door with a narrow staircase to the bell tower, which I ascended for a bit and might have continued upwards, if we hadn't already been late starting out. The clock mechanism didn't seem to be working, though. 

A look back up at the church as we head down through the village.   

Heading out on our hike now by descending below the village.   

We are not too far into the Hérens Valley here, and get this super view north into the Rhône Valley and the city of Sion. Across the Hérens Valley is the town of Vex perched at the junction of the two valleys. On our way out of the valley in the evening, the bus passed through there. 

This is the start of the official trail called the "Chemin d'Ossona", Trail no.215. We actually could have come directly to here on the bus, but decided to ride the bus a bit higher up the hill to start in Vernamiège.

Information from our Swiss Mobile website about the "Chemin d'Ossona" Trail. Even though the trail features a rebuilt hamlet with restaurant and accommodation based on local farming, we ended up not going through the village after all, but passed above it. 

We originally mapped out a 3¾-hour and 13-km tour, but we only managed about 3 hours. The section between La Luette where we ended, and the pyramids in Euseigne were all in shadow by the time we got to La Luette at 4 p.m., so we boarded a bus to the back of the Hérens Valley instead. 

The trail all the ways to Ossona (about 4 km) was mostly on an easy forest trail like this. 

One highlight of the walk is that there are a lot of different and interesting fungi in the forest at this time of year!

Even though we started late and didn't walk as far as planned, we had lots of sunshine and a nice trail for our mountain hike. The Hérens Valley actually goes off to the left, and the one we mostly saw on this hike was the Héremence Valley (Village of Héremence on upper right) where we have walked a couple of times.. 

This valley is the Val d'Héremence and we have done two fantastic hikes there. One of those hikes was called the "Tour du Mont Rouge" (see photos HERE), and the other really memorable hike was when we started at the fabulous Grande Dixence Dam at the very back, and walked all the way out of the valley above and past Héremence (photos HERE). 

Passing through a small hamlet called Le Grand Sevanne. 

From here another good look toward Vex and Sion. 

The trail then went into a dark side valley, where we saw this particularly fabulous mushroom.

Lovely sound of rushing water from the river called Manna, as we cross the river before returning to the sunshine at Ossona. 

Even without sunshine, I rather enjoyed this little section into the side valley. 

Now we get the first look at the town of Euseigne at the junction of the two valleys, and a large pasture with lots of goats (part of the Ossona site). This looks weird, as they look like grazing cows. You usually see the goats on steep and rocky hillsides, rather than wide green pastures like this. 

This was kind of funny. As there wasn't really a fence on the north side of the pasture, it looks like some of the goats made themselves comfortable on the road!

The car barely stopped for the goats. Just kept honking until they got up and moved aside!

We didn't take the detour through the hamlet of Ossona, but rather had a look at the houses from above as we headed to the suspension bridge, which is nearby. Directly across the valley is the town of Hérémence, which we had also hoped to have a look at, as the houses are very pretty. Also for another trip....

First view of the Euseigne pyramids (top of photo with the tunnel entrance). Unfortunately the sun is now lighting up the other side of the spires, and we see only the shadowy side. 

Close-up of the Euseigne pyramids, which are about 15 meters high. It is hard to see, but each spire has a rock on top! The earth cones, created about 50,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, are some of Switzerland's most important geological features. The melting glaciers left the boulders behind, and the water continued to erode the earth around them, leaving them balancing on the top! (A better photo can be found on this website HERE). 

We now arrive at the suspension bridge, one of the attractions of the day! It's called the "Passerelle de la Grande Combe". We also get the first glimpse of the snow-covered peaks at the back of the Hérens Valley. 

We got to the bridge at 2:45 p.m., with another hour to go to La Luette. (And from there it would have been another hour to the pyramids).

In the background on the left we get a better view of the summit called Mont Rouge, where we did a hike in August 2018 (photos HERE)

The suspension bridge is 133 meters long and hangs 30 meters above the ravine. 

We always enjoy suspension bridges. Unlike the Charles Kuonen one in the Matter Valley, there were no other people here!

After Ossona, the trail also became more interesting. 

Across the gorge, we see the houses of Euseigne. As of now (3 p.m.), it was still the plan to walk through there to the pyramids. 

And now a really good view up the Hérens Valley. It sure made me wish we had thought to go all the way to the back!

We are still enjoying the narrow mountain trails

The gorge is deep and narrow here, with Euseigne at the back. We have to walk quite a way up the valley to cross the river, before returning to Euseigne. 

Some more very interesting fungi we saw along the way!

A nice view now to the north past Vex and into the Rhône Valley again. It is interesting to see the trail we walked, on the eastern mountain flank. The long shadows make it seem like it is much later in the day, even though it's only 3:45 p.m.  

Here near the crossing of the Borgne river were some other very interesting pyramid formations. 

Across the gorge is the hamlet called La Luette on the main road. We have to go down to the river, and cross over to there. From there it would be another 50 minutes to the right, but we didn't like that it was all in the shadow of the mountain by now. 

We had just missed a bus north to Euseigne, or we might have taken that one straight to the pyramids and skipped these last four kilometers. We checked the bus schedule and saw that there was a bus coming in a few minutes heading south further into the valley, so we decided on the spur of the moment to simply do a bus ride there. This is the little church in La Luette. 

Waiting for the bus on the shadow side of the valley, but perfect lighting on the interesting geological features on the east side!

Admiring the rock formations as we await the bus to Les Haudères. 

This is what our approximately 3-hour (9-km) hike looks like on Google Satellite Maps. We never did make it to the pyrmids as was planned. In retrospect, it was a long trip for just a 9-km hike!

We crossed the Borgne River at Luette at just before 4 p.m., from where it would have been another 50 minutes to the pyramids at Euseigne, but by then that section of the trail was all in shadow, and we just didn't feel like walking it anymore. We had checked about buses higher up into the valley and there was one passing through La Luette at 4:06 p.m., so we hopped the bus for the 20-minute ride to Evolène and Les Haudères (end of the line) hoping there was still sunshine there! Which there was. And we had exactly 30 minutes there to walk through the small village before heading back to Sion with the 16:55 bus, which was perfect timing, as that's when the shadows of the mountains hit the village. It was a good decision, as we had never been in this part of Val d'Hérens (very popular in winter) and now have more ideas of coming here for some hikes next summer.

As the bus heads further up into the Hérens Valley, the snow-covered peaks at the back are simply stunning. From our map, these might be the Dent Blanche (4358 meters) on the left and Dents de Veisevi on the right? (Dent = Tooth). 

First we had planned to disembark in Evolène, as we have heard the name often but never been here. Only it was also in shadow, so we stayed seated till Les Haudères, end of the line. The sign claims that Evolène is one of the most beautiful villages in Switzerland. 

We were so happy that the sun was still shining in Les Haudères! We had 30 minutes to walk around the alleyways before the next bus left for back down the valley. 

So many pretty houses in this village. 

In particular, the mountain backdrop was stunning. This peak is the Dent Blanche (= White Tooth). The larger white patch is a glacier. 

Urs waiting for me to finish taking photos of the Dent Blanche

The granaries on the mushroom posts are found in all the villages in Canton Valais. 

Between the houses we spotted a yard with a fountain and a very neat pizza oven!

According to intensive Internet research, I learned that these peaks are called the Dents de Veisivi (large and small). It was awe-inspiring at how high they tower directly over the village. 

So beautiful

Too bad that car was in the way for a great photo of the cutest little house!

A cool close-up of the peak of Mt. Dent Blanche

You can't see it because of the snow low on the mountains, but there are glaciers on those flanks. 

More mountains on the range east of the village. On the other side is the Moiry Glacier, which we were fortunate to experience up close in September 2020. (Those photos are HERE)

Heading down the main road now toward the next bus stop further down.

We really would have liked to see the inside of this chapel, called the "Ancienne Chapelle des Haudères" (from 1632) but it was locked. I found photos of the beautiful inside on the Internet at this webpage: https://notrehistoire.ch/entries/qNWj0e7OBkr

Right about where the clouds are hanging on the right side of the snow-covered peak is a pass called Col du Torrent, over which you can pass from Lake Moiry on the other side and down to Evolène, another hike we had hoped to do one day.  

At the bus stop, a couple of the "Vaches d'Hérens" were grazing. They are rather a small cattle, but very stocky. And even though they are not bred for fighting, the leading females often get into power fights to determine who is the lead female. The farmers use this characteristic to pit their cows against other farmers' cows to determine who becomes the Queen of the Hérens Cattle. 

This map shows where we caught the bus in La Luette to the back of the valley at Les Haudères. At about 5 p.m. we caught the bus back out of the valley via Euseigne and Vex back to Sion. 

At 5 p.m. we caught the bus back out of the valley to Sion, a 50-minute bus ride. I had to stand on the right side of the bus (all right side window seats were already taken) to try to get photos of the pyramids as we passed through Euseigne again on the way down, but the bus driver was taking the corners so quickly that I needed one hand to hold on. And there were only a few spaces between the trees to catch some photos. The valley was already quite in shadow, so it felt weird to still have full sunshine in the Rhône Valley at 6 p.m., and at that point, it seemed too early to go to our hotel! 

But we headed to Brig, a 35-minute train ride, and had dinner at our favourite pizzeria there, then headed for a good night at the "Good Night Inn" in our perfect 5th floor room overlooking the Saltina River and with a view of the Stockalper Palace and Belalp above Naters. We always like it in Brig.

Passing through Evolène again on the way back down the valley by bus, with the towering "Dents de Veisivi" dominating the background. 

A look to the back of the Hérens Valley. 

As we pass through Euseigne, we can see the suspension bridge we crossed earlier, and the mountainside we walked along, still in sunshine! (Lots of shadow on this side, though). 

This is the best photo I could take of the Euseigne pyramids from this side. We will definitely have to make another trip here.

Another view of the Dent Blanche at the back of the valley. 

Approaching Vex now, before making the winding descent to Sion. (On the right at the top is the town of Nax)

Fantastic.

Now across the deep gorge we can also see the village of Vernamiège where we started our hike, and the approximate way we descended for the hike along the valley. 

Lots of sunshine in the Rhône Valley. It hardly seems like the day should be ending! In the winter months, this is the much better place to be walking for the sunshine! 

Towering over the city of Sion are the ruins of the the castle of Tourbillon on the right, and the castle and cathedral of Valère on the left. 

A close-up look at Tourbillon castle from the bus window. It was the summer residence of the Bishops of Sion (Sitten) until it was destroyed by fire in 1788

The Cathedral of Valère is over 1000 years old and houses the world's oldest original still in operation organ built in 1390.  

Another look at the Valère Castle as we now head eastward from Sion to Brig by train (6 p.m.) 

These are the many hikes we have done in the valleys south of Sion: Lac de Moiry and the Moiry Glacier at the end of the Val d'Anniviers, Lac de Dix to Collons in the Val d'Héremence, Lac de Cleuson in the Val de Nendaz, an irrigation channel hike from Haute Nendaz to Veysonnaz. Now we have seen a bit of the Val d'Hérens as well. 

Lovely evening sunshine on the miles and miles of vineyards in the Lower Valais. 

Beyond the Pfyn Forest (largest contiguous pine forest in Switzerland) are the mountains of the Upper Valais. 

At 6:40 p.m. we were already in the heart of the city of Brig, on our way to our favourite pizzeria. 

We discovered this restaurant (Restaurant Matza) last time we were in Brig, and really liked the food and ambience, so we had dinner here again, before heading to our hotel. 

The "Good Night Inn" hotel has a fabulous display of models of various castles in the region. There is also a model train exhibit available for group tours. 

This was our fifth floor room, the view from our room, and the dining room where we had a buffet breakfast available. Bottom right is the early morning view of Belalp... too much snow to do a nice hike up there, unfortunately. 

Where the Val d'Hérens is located within Switzerland. The trip there normally takes 4½ hours which is long for a day trip. (In retrospect, we could have made it home from Sion by about 9 p.m.). But it is nicer to spend a night in the region and do a second excursion the next day.