Rochers de Naye, Switzerland

Dwight Peck's personal website

The Rochers de Naye, Switzerland

above Montreux and Lac Léman

You may not find this interesting unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

Les Rochers de Naye

The Rochers de Naye (right, 2042m), with the Dent de Jaman (1875m) on the left, seen in 1980 from Les Avants across the ravine of the Baye de Montreux. A cograil train winds up from Montreux (375m) on Lake Geneva, Lac Léman, through the villages of Glion and Caux, then crosses diagonally upward towards the Dent de Jaman, curves back right onto the snow-covered ridge in this photo -- at the Station de Jaman (1758m) -- then enters a tunnel through the mountain and curves up behind the summit to a venerable hotel.

The summit from directly below, on the west side, overlooking the lake, 1981.

Rochers de Naye from the south (from the Pointe de l'Aiguille next to the Pointe d'Aveneyre), September 1980. A path to the top leads from the direction of Leysin past the Col de Chaude and up along the ridge on the right.

Another way to reach the summit is through the Grottes de Naye, about 1.5km north of the summit along the ridgeline of Grande Chaux de Naye. The hiking trail through the caves enters at the red dot, winds about inside for 20 minutes and exits onto a ledge where the green dot is, following which one walks up the steep meadow to the ridge, where the blue dot can be seen. Recently, as can be seen above, a stairway has been installed along the outside of the cliff for hikers who don't wish to go through the caves.
[More on the Grottes de Naye here.]

Having passed through the caves and walked up the path from the exit to the ridgeline,

one can look up southward to the Rochers de Naye summit, and the hotel just below it, September 2003.

The same view, October 1980.

Walking along the Grande Chaux de Naye ridgeline, September 2003, one can look back across at the Dent de Jaman, with the Col de Bonaudon in the foreground. [More Jaman.]

The colorful steam train from Caux and Montreux passing up through a long tunnel through the mountain into the bowl below the hotel, with a few more tunnels to go before the station (seen from the Chaux de Naye ridge). Just above the upper tunnel area can be seen what's evidently the second oldest alpine botanical garden in the world, between the two little rocky things (the oldest alpine garden is said to be at Pont de Nant above Bex). The nearly horizontal path leading to the ridge on the upper left will take you, eventually, to Leysin, in one day if you stride briskly along.

The scenic steam railway of Rochers de Naye, with the narrator blocking a good part of the view.

The "Leysin Tours", the mountains of Leysin, seen from Rochers de Naye, with the Avenyre range in the foreground -- Grand Ayerne and the valley of the Lac d'Hongrin, with its military training ground, lie between Aveneyre and the Leysin mountains.

More scenes of the hotel at Rochers de Naye, September 2003, with tourist hilarity and good snack dining going on everywhere. The hotel has a special launch pad for parapenters to leap off from at the top of the cliffs overlooking Lake Geneva, and it boasts . . .

. . . a Park for Marmots, those sly little whistling rodenty denizens of the high mountains, almost impossible to see close up, normally -- but here they are on view in specially built little vacation homes of their own spread all about within walking distance from the hotel. Tourists can follow the itinerary and get fit and view rodents all at the same time.

The path down from the front of Naye passes by this hut at the top of the vicious Sautodoz gulley.

The Leysin Tours can be seen in the background.

From the bottom of the Sautodoz gulley, walking back up across the front of the Rochers de Naye under the cliffs towards La Perche and the Station de Jaman on the train line, one glances down towards Lake Geneva in the late afternoon in September 2003.

La Perche, September 2003 -- here's where the train from Montreux goes into the mountain, to emerge near the hotel of the Rochers de Naye, as seen above.

The single car train just about to enter the tunnel, April 1981.

The Rochers de Naye summit on the skyline, November 2001, with the cograil train tunnel snaking up just to the left of the ridge and entering the mountain at the foot of the cliffs in the upper center of the picture.

A walk to the Rochers de Naye from the west side, July 2006

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