The Daffodil Trail in the Jura Mountains: via Vue des Alpes & Tête de Ran

The first hike of the season couldn’t have been more beautiful. And what’s more—it was the perfect spring day! For a long time, I believed that the only place in the Jura Mountains where yellow daffodils bloom in the spring (around Easter) was the Les Prés d’Orvin area. But a single Instagram post proved me wrong (yes, that’s how I get inspiration for our trips). So on Saturday, we headed just past Neuchâtel to discover the daffodil meadows in the Vue des Alpes and Tête de Ran areas. These two locations are also beautifully connected into a single loop trail—an ideal spring hike, but one you have to set out on at the right time, preferably in April when the daffodils are in bloom.

How to get there

By train: to Neuchâtel, then on to Les Hauts-Geneveys; by car: to Les Hauts-Geneveys; just above the village is the free Parking Les Hauts-Geneveys.

Start of the route

Depending on whether you arrived by train or car, set off from the train station or parking lot, respectively, in the direction of Vue-des-Alpes.

On this stretch, you’ll face an uphill climb through the forest, but at the end of it, you’ll be rewarded with exactly what you came here for—the first fields of daffodils.

The trail continues along the contour line through fields of daffodils. Along the way, you’ll catch your first glimpses of the scenery, such as the nearby Chasseral (by the way, I’ve heard there are daffodil fields there too, so keep that in mind for next time).

Vue des Alpes

About halfway along the route, we came to a spot that serves as a small ski resort in winter—Téléski des Loges. We continued up through the pasture and arrived at the La Vue des Alpes pass. Vue des Alpes is a mountain pass at an elevation of 1,283 meters, connecting Neuchâtel and La Chaux-de-Fonds. As the name suggests, it offers a magnificent view of the entire Alpine range on a clear day—and it is precisely this contrast between the spring landscape of the Jura Mountains and the snow-capped peaks of the Alps that makes this area one of the most beautiful places for spring excursions. For children (but certainly adults as well), there’s another attraction: a 700-meter-long toboggan run. In addition, there’s a large parking lot and a restaurant with a terrace.

From there, we continued on toward Tête-de-Ran. There was still quite a bit of snow left here, and some of the daffodil meadows were just beginning to bloom. So there’s a good chance that if you come here even a little later, there will still be something in bloom.

Tête-de-Ran

But the most spectacular sight of daffodils came just before Tête-de-Ran, when we walked into a veritable “sea of yellow.”

Like Vue des Alpes, Tête-de-Ran (1,422 m) is a small ski resort in winter and a starting point for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing trails. If you like, you can take a detour from the restaurant and climb to the summit itself. We decided to skip this little adventure and continued on to the final stretch of our route: a comfortable descent through the forest back to the parking lot.

Summary

• Route length: 9.3 km or 10.1 km – depending on whether you start from the train station or the parking lot
• The route is not suitable for strollers.
• The hike takes about 3 to 3.5 hours—depending, of course, on how often you stop to take pictures of the daffodils (and believe me, you’ll stop often )
• The daffodil meadows in the Vue des Alpes and Tête de Ran areas are beautiful, and if we want to preserve them for future visitors, we should act accordingly. That means staying on the marked trails, picking a small bouquet of daffodils for yourself (but don’t pull them up by the bulbs!), closing gates behind you, and not leaving trash behind.
• You can find route details, including the elevation profile, here.

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