Snowshoeing in the Jura: Creux du Van in winter

Regular readers know that the Creux du Van has been on my Swiss bucket list for quite some time. And since I had already been able to admire this natural spectacle once in summer, I really wanted to go to the Jura in the deep snowy winter. But so far, something has always come up – in 90% of the cases, bad weather forecasts prevented us from a spontaneous snowshoe tour in the Jura. Once again, the forecasts looked anything but promising. So I confidently set the alarm clock for five o’clock in the morning so that we could tackle our snowshoe tour before the bad weather front. But the motivation was limited in the morning and so we didn’t set off until an hour later. The practical thing about the GA travelcard is that you just drive off despite bad weather forecasts. “We’ll see,” is the motto.

As expected, the Val de Travers behind Neuchâtel was grey in grey. But about 200 meters above our starting point, the village of Noiraigue, the fir trees are covered in white sugar. We shoulder our snowshoes and walk uphill for the first 45 minutes with our hiking boots. With this tour we want to inaugurate our new snowshoes from MSR (model «Lightning Ascent»), which we bought last week at Ochsner Sport at a special price (I have been waiting all winter for the snowshoe promotions). From Noiraigue we follow the summer hiking trail towards Les Oeillons. Fortunately, it has traces in front of us that we can use as a guide. The higher we get, the more snow there is on the trail. Without snowshoes, this tour would be steep in terms of conditions. More than 700 meters of altitude have to be overcome until we finally reach the ridge, where the rock faces of the Creux du Van drop vertically. We start to puff nicely. Finally at the top, the weather makes the expected U-turn. The wind blows around our ears and the snow is whirled in our faces. On the other hand, the atmosphere is unique. Icy gnarled trees, snow-covered fir forests and an unobstructed view down into the spectacular rock arena.

The nasty weather seemed to have kept everyone but us from a winter trip to the Creux du Van. We have him to ourselves that day. But the mercilessly whistling wind drives us forward despite the magical winter atmosphere. It gets more and more uncomfortable by the minute and the tracks that we were able to orient ourselves on the ascent are missing on the descent towards La Grand Vy, which results in an unintentional extra detour towards Croza de L’Eau.

After a good 4.5 hours of hiking we are back at the Noiraigue train station. Despite the capricious weather, it was a beautiful tour that also challenged us physically. Luckily, I was able to outwit my weaker self in the early morning. As a reward, we treat ourselves to a warming fondue at home. I would think we definitely deserve it.

Practical information and tips for snowshoeing Noiraigue – Creux-du-Van

The route can be found on the map below. The hike starts at Noiraigue station and leads vie Les Oeillons and over 14 steep hairpin bends up to Le Soliat. For the way back, we chose the route via La Grand Vy and La Ferme Robert. The circular hike is about 14 km long, includes an ascent of 770 meters in altitude and a descent of 770 meters in altitude. It takes about 4.5 hours of hiking time.

We followed the “summer hiking trail” with our snowshoes (yellow markings on the trees). There is no official snowshoe trail signposted. Between Le Soliat and La Grand Vy the tracks of other winter hikers and snowshoe hikers were blown away – so it helps if you have a GPS with you (I use the Switzerland mobile app in each case). The starting point in Noiraigue can be reached by S-Bahn at Neuchâtel (about 20 minutes).