Les Truex ridge and tour de Famelon

🗺️ Overview

• Starting point: Leysin – La Berneuse, 2045m (reachable by gondola)

• Highest point: Les Truex ridge (2194 m)

• Total elevation gain: +430 m (from La Berneuse) / 1150m

• Total distance: ~10.8 km

• Total time: ~4h

• Technical difficulty: T3 (moderate mountain trail with a short chain section)

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After Tour de Mayen in 2020 and Tour d’Aï in 2023, I completed the trio of the Leysin towers with the Tour de Famelon (2137 m)!

As I hadn’t hiked for a few weeks — my daughter Marina was just born and I was a bit out of shape — I decided to take it easy and start by taking the gondola up to La Berneuse, saving myself some uphill effort. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, and a sea of clouds was covering the valley below.

The hike begins downhill toward Lac d’Aï and its charming little alpine hamlet. At a bifurcation, you can take the smaller path straight ahead — it’s more direct.

After circling the lake and climbing to the chairlift area, the path descends again to Chalet de Mayen, in front of the lake of the same name. 

Here, a sign indicates the directions to Tour de Mayen and Tour de Famelon, both uphill.

A narrow rocky ledge leads you in about 15 minutes to another fork. You can reach Tour de Famelon from both sides: the right-hand path is shorter and quicker, while the left one follows the Les Truex ridge, which is more scenic. I chose the latter.

After a few minutes, you pass a small wooden bivouac, and the trail turns right, running below the foot of Tour de Mayen. About 15 minutes later you reach Lac Segray, where you can go left (blue alpine route to Tour de Mayen) or right to Les Truex.

A steep grassy slope brings you to the ridge, where you are greeted by a magnificent view of the two towers standing above a shimmering sea of clouds (at least in my case). Another five minutes lead to the summit of the ridge — the highest point of the hike at 2194 m.

Then comes the trickiest section: the ridge is made of rock formations full of holes (I suppose this is why it is called "Les Truex", trou is "hole" in French), tricky to walk on and sometimes confusing as the trail isn’t always obvious. I lost it a couple of times and needed about half an hour to reach the base of Tour de Famelon.

From here, a grassy slope turns into a rocky path, ending with a short chain-protected step — a small 3-meter wall that brings you to the top. The summit plateau is wide and grassy, just like on the other two towers.

The panorama is stunning: the three towers together, Les Diablerets, Les Dents du Midi, and Le Rocher de Naye, with Lac d’Hongrin shimmering below.

The return follows the same path at first, but at the base of the tower you can take a shortcut leading directly to Chalet Crêt de Fer (about 30 minutes). You can actually drive to this chalet — it could serve as an alternative starting point, though you’d miss the Les Truex ridge.

From here, follow the winter ski slope downhill on the right (note: it’s easy to miss — I instinctively followed the asphalt road, which takes longer). The ski slope leads to the bottom of the chairlift, where you continue until the trail meets the road again.

After a stretch on the road, you’ll cross a mountain bike path. At a bend go straight there to follow a small trail that serves as a shortcut back to the starting point — the gondola parking lot.