Hikes in the Alps in September

September hikes with fewer crowds: the Lagazuoi, Rochers de Naye above Lake Geneva, Monte Avic in the Aosta Valley, Lago Vago and Val Masino.

For many of us September is the best month for walking high up: the August crowds have gone, the air is often clearer, the pastures begin to turn yellow and the huts are still open, at least in the first half of the month. The list puts first the hikes we have tagged as both summer and autumn hikes, because they also work as the days shorten, and places further down those that are at their best in the heart of summer. The first snowfalls at altitude are possible, and a dusting can turn an easy path into a delicate one for a few days.

Rochers de Naye, the two-thousand-metre summit closest to Lake Geneva, and the Lagazuoi loop, with its three hundred metres of ascent through wartime tunnels, are our first recommendations. In the Aosta Valley, the Rifugio Barbustel and the ten-lake loop in the Monte Avic Natural Park cross larch woods with a North American feel, while in Val Masino the Rifugio Gianetti is reached in a long day among granite giants. Above Livigno, Lago Vago and the balcony of Alp and Munt La Schera look over the turquoise Lago di Livigno.

Good to know

By tradition the mountain huts close around 20 September, and although many now stay open longer, from mid-month onwards it pays to check each one, especially for overnight traverses such as the Cima Brenta tour. It is also the month when the herds come down from the summer pastures: in Switzerland the désalpe, or Alpabzug, takes place in many villages between mid September and mid October, with the cows decked in flowers and bells, and in the Aosta Valley the Désarpa usually falls between late September and early October.

From mid September to mid October the woods of the central Alps echo with the roaring of red deer in the rut, and the Stelvio National Park runs guided outings to hear it. Anyone climbing to the Lagazuoi, meanwhile, walks through the open-air museum of the Great War, among restored trenches, gun positions and tunnels dug into the rock during the war between Italy and Austria-Hungary.