Spanning the frontier between cantons Vaud and Fribourg, the Vanil Noir Nature Reserve is home to a wide and exceptional variety of flora and fauna. The reserve can be reached via hiking trails starting from Château-d’Oex or Rougemont.
Located in the heart of the Gruyère–Pays-d’Enhaut Regional Natural Park, the Vanil Noir Nature Reserve constitutes an unmissable hiking destination for all nature lovers and watchers. Quite apart from its breath-taking alpine scenery, it offers unique opportunities to see examples of rare flora and fauna. Apart from Alpine ibex, chamois and marmots, perhaps you’ll be afforded a glimpse of the mountain hare, the rock partridge or the bearded vulture. The reserve also contains examples of exceptional plant species such as the alpine woundwort (Stachys alpina) and the pyramidal orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis). The Reserve is officially listed as a natural site of national importance. Covering an area of some 15 km2, the whole reserve is dominated by the magnificent mountain that lends it its name: the 2,389 m Vanil Noir.
