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Val d’Anniviers and Val de Moiry

The road into Val d’Anniviers wriggles south of Sierre into the jaws of a gorge that obscures the valley’s wonders, but once you emerge from that, one delight after another is announced. A few small villages and hamlets cling to the steep hillsides on both sides of the valley, and at Vissoie the road forks, with a secondary route branching off to Grimentz and the Val de Moiry. The upper stem of the main valley takes its name from Zinal, the highest of its villages, which serves as an important, though small, mountaineering and walking centre. Reached by postbus from Sierre, Zinal lies just short of the glacial amphitheatre that closes the valley in an arc of towering peaks: Weisshorn, Zinal­rothorn, Ober Gabelhorn, Dent Blanche, Grand Cornier and Les Bouquetins. Thanks to the steepness of these walling mountains and the long ridges they push north, some of the trails in Val d’Anniviers are quite demanding, but the visual rewards they give more than compensate for the effort required to tackle them.