Sentier des ponts historiques du Sépey

Twice down to the Grande Eau

You start in Le Sépey, at 977 m, and finish there too. The loop is 7.0 km long, with 400 m of climbing and the same amount of descent according to SwitzerlandMobility, which gives 2 h 20 of walking time in either direction. The highest point, at 1,051 m, is near Le Verney, in Cergnat.

From there the path heads down through Dessous Cergnat and the hamlet of Le Pont to the Grande Eau, passes the Pont de la Tine hydroelectric power station and then the Pont de la Tine itself. It climbs back up through Les Faveires towards Les Planches, drops down to the old Pont des Planches and returns to Le Sépey through Les Plans and Les Chenevières. The Tea Room Mont d'Or is right at the start; bring something to drink for the rest of the way, and follow the signposts and check the conditions on the day.

The oldest village in the Ormonts

The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland describes Le Sépey as certainly the oldest clustered settlement in the Ormonts valley. In 1441, the co-lords of Aigremont granted the valley's farmers two annual fairs here. The Sépey stream, which you cross at the start, used to power many mills, a tannery and a forge.

The carriage road from Aigle, built in 1835-1840, brought a boom that peaked around 1870 with three large hotels. Cergnat, the first hamlet on the loop, is one of the oldest permanent settlements in the municipality of Ormont-Dessous, along with Le Sépey and La Forclaz; its parish church, dedicated to Saint Maurice, is recorded in 1279.

Gorges and rocks of the Prealps

The Grande Eau flows from Les Diablerets down to Aigle; the old Pont des Planches is nestled in the Grande Eau gorges, and the Pont de la Tine crosses the river too. The path runs through forests and gorges with views of the surrounding peaks; the loop also crosses the Sépey stream.

Underfoot, it is moraine more often than anything else, much of it assigned to the glacier retreat after the Last Glacial Maximum, then limestone, dolomite and cellular dolomite (cornieule) of the Préalpes médianes, plus gypsum near the Pont de la Tine. A large part of the loop runs through a "zone of slope sagging" (zone de tassement).

Two stone bridges, two centuries

The Pont de la Tine, also known as the Pont Lavau, was rebuilt in 1729 in the Roman tradition of stone vaults, according to the Chablais public transport company (TPC). At this spot runs an old route of regional importance with a lot of historical substance, included in the Inventory of Historical Traffic Routes in Switzerland (IVS).

The old Pont des Planches was built between 1776 and 1778 by François Giroud, a master mason from Veytaux. Listed as a historic monument since 1968, it was closed in 2015 after the road surface sank. In March 2023, just before the works began, its downstream wall collapsed; building materials were brought in by helicopter. The Association of Friends of the 1778 Pont des Planches raised the funds, the Federal Roads Office paid for a third of the works, and the bridge was inaugurated on Saturday 25 May 2024: it links Le Sépey and La Forclaz once again. On the road from Le Sépey to La Forclaz, another Pont des Planches, built in 1913, is listed as a Swiss cultural property of national importance.

Back to Le Sépey, and the train

From the old bridge, the last climb takes you through Les Plans and Les Chenevières and back into the village. The Aigle-Sépey-Diablerets railway has served Le Sépey since 1914; along the loop it also stops on request at Les Planches and Les Fontanelles. Further down this page: the next departures from Le Sépey.