Snowshoe Hike Report – ‘Parcours Robella-Chasseron’ (SM SS 244)

Short Description

The ‘Parcours Robella-Chasseron’ trail leads from the cable car station near Buttes, Fribourg, to the top of Le Chasseron mountain, and back down on the same trail, crossing the border between the cantons Fribourg and Vaud along the way.

From the peak, there is a panoramic view of Fribourg, Vaud, and the alps to be enjoyed.

Notes

• The route can be extended by skipping the cable car, but check snow levels in the valley first.
• The cable car seats are tiny, and won’t comfortably seat two people with backpacks and gear. The staff is happy to send your things on the next car behind you though, if you ask them to.
• If you schlep skis to the top, you could ski all the way down (on prepared pistes near the trail) instead of walking back.
• Much of the trail is shared with the aforementioned pistes, but there aren’t (or weren’t) many skiers.

Impressions

The Jurassian mountain range is seldom plagued by avalanche risk, as opposed to the alps, where the long awaited fresh snowfall had elevated the risk too high for any of the other trails on our wish list. This was one of two reasons we chose this trail for today, the other being to take pictures of it to be featured on Schweizmobil.ch.

Well, at least I hope they will be, because photographing against the sun isn’t exactly ideal, and being inexperienced with these conditions, I didn’t always adjust for the lighting quite well enough.

Anyway, back to the trail. The landscapes are lovely, and the views from the top fantastic.

They compensate for most of the trail running along ski pistes, detracting from the semi-adventurous, semi-wilderness atmosphere that often enchants snowshoe hikers.

They also compensate for taking the same track back. I don’t know about you, but I’m just not particularly fond of backtracking.

Nevertheless, it was a lovely day in a lovely region and we’d recommend the trail at least for those days where there seems to be a high avalanche risk in the alps.

Would you like to share your own experiences with this hike? Do you have any questions? Something to add? Feel free to leave a comment below 🙂

Route Report / Gallery

Full size images without watermarks are available for licensing to interested parties. Check romans.pictures for a selection of my favorites, or contact me for details.

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