What an experience!! We had read about this on internet and decided to give it a try today as it wasn’t going to be too hot.
For those of you who haven't heard of it, Lac du Taney is a beautiful lake in Valais set 1,408 meters above sea level.
Our plan was to park as close as possible to the start of the mountain path, walk up and have a picnic, explore a bit and come back down. We arrived around 9.30 and were already told that a lot of the parking closer to the start of the climb was full so we had to park along the side of the road some distance away.
We were already rather tired by the time we reached the start of the real walk where the forest began and it was a fairly daunting prospect to see on the map the distance that lay ahead. The path itself was dry, dusty and rocky which made getting a foothold difficult and although some parts were shady, a lot was in full sun so we were grateful to have smothered on the sunblock and brought caps with us.
Jean had seen that this walk was described as being fairly easy and suitable for children and we saw lots of families with young children en route - perhaps because an article in Loisirs.ch was featured this week and gave it a difficulty rating of 2/5. I think we would disagree with the rating and would not describe this as an easy walk - although it’s hard to gauge how we would have found it without the babies on our backs.
It's about 4km to the lake and its uphill ALL THE WAY. We rose more than 400metres during the assent which took us about 1,5 hours. The last 800 meters were especially hard and I really had to force myself to put one foot in front of the other. Alba was rocking in the carrier from one side to another and singing which didn’t help much either :-). That said, there were places to stop and rest and some beautiful views from various points along the route. We passed a lovely waterfall not far into the walk which provided some fresh air and a chance to pause for a moment.
Once we eventually reached the top it was then a pleasant walk to the lake, it’s a beautiful green area with mountains on all sides and a stunning blue/green lake in the middle.
There was a race on today so the area was nicely busy and we stopped at a restaurant for a drink before looking for a suitable place to have our picnic.
There were some public toilets by the lake and plenty of nice places to sit. We found a good patch by the edge of the lake and admired the view while we ate but we hadn’t prepared well for the rapidly changing temperatures at that height and it got rather cold at one point so we hastened through our lunch and began the climb back rather than staying longer to explore the lake a bit more.
"We found a nice patch by the edge of the lake and admired the view"
Again, the dusty, rocky path wasn’t easy to negotiate on the way down making it hard to take confident strides with the babies on our backs so our knees had a tough time but still a walk in the park compared to the uphill climb.
We were frequently passed by « taxis » who will take you up or down for the princely sum of CHF40! There were definitely times on the way up when I thought this would have been money well spent but we were pleased with ourselves for having made it under our own steam.
Obviously we are far from seasoned hikers and I think people with more experience would find it easier, but for us with the baby carriers and Jude, who managed the entire walk but not without some serious cajoling, it was one of the more challenging walks we have attempted so far.
The view at the top is certainly worth making the effort for and there are a couple of restaurants to stop and recuperate before the climb down.
We also saw signs for a Cremerie in the village selling cheese, yoghurt, cream etc which we would have liked to visit.
Our advice would be to make sure you arrive early if you don't want to have to park very far away, make sure you have lots of sunscreen and even a light jacket for the lake area which is cooler. For Jude at the age of nearly 5 it was manageable but I think it would be tough for much younger children.
Information
Parking : Yes
Toilets : Yes
Baby Change Facilities : No
Accessibility : We would not recommend a pushchair but baby carrier
Vouvry (VS) - Miex (VS) - Taney (VS)