The Alpine Pass Route, Switzerland, Europe - A Trekker's Guide

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
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There’s immense satisfaction to be gained by undertaking a long journey across a mountain land. There’s the daily challenge, of course, and rewards when, on reaching the summit of a pass that has occupied most of a morning’s effort, you are greeted by a panorama of unimagined beauty, with peaks and ridges on a far horizon that will lure you on in days to come. And when at last you gain those distant ridges, you then exchange them for yet new horizons, new scenes of wonder, new challenges to be met and overcome day by day.

A long journey through a mountain landscape can be a tremendous source of pleasure and achievement. And when that journey makes a traverse of the Swiss Alps, with mountains as dramatic as Titlis, Wetterhorn, Eiger, Mönch, Jungfrau, Gspaltenhorn, Blümlisalp and Les Diablerets, then the journey becomes one of countless daily rewards for those who complete it.

Such a journey is faced by walkers along the Alpine Pass Route as they trek from the far east of Switzerland to the west of the country to Lake Geneva.

I first walked some of the APR, without realising it, some 30 years ago, and over subsequent years returned many times to walk other sections – again, without being aware of its existence. Then, fortuitously, I was sent on a journalistic assignment to cover a commercial trek across the central section of the APR from Altdorf to Lauenen.

It proved to be one of the finest, most enjoyable walks I’d ever undertaken, and before it was over I determined to return to Switzerland at the earliest opportunity, not just to repeat it, but to complete the whole route from Sargans to Montreux. This turned out to be every bit as magical as I’d hoped, for the Alpine Pass Route, I discovered, is not only one of the classic walks of the Alps, it will stand comparison with almost any other long walk in Europe.

The Alpine Pass Route

Although it has no official status, the Alpine Pass Route makes a complete east to west traverse of Switzerland from the ancient town of Sargans on the borders of Liechtenstein, to Montreux on the shores of the Lake of Geneva (Lac Léman). It covers some 326km (202 miles) of mountain and valley, and crosses 16 passes with an accumulation of more than 18,000m (59,000ft) of height-gain in 15 stages.

And what stages these are!

Every one lives up to its promise. Each day begins with the prospect of wandering for hour after hour through valleys coloured by wild flowers, streams, crags and waterfalls, cowbells and birdsong, remote farms and haybarns, pasture and woodland flanked by mountains whose sheer scale tends at times to catch your breath with a sense of wonder. The scenic diversity is astonishing. Some of the valleys glisten with tarns. Some are backed by glacial tongues that project from mountain recesses; others are crusted with moraine deposits left by retreating ice-sheets a thousand years and more ago. Some of the valleys are gentle, pastoral swathes – great grass-bedded hammocks slung between mountain ridges – while some have been scoured by ice into deep U-shaped trenches, like that of the Weisse Lütschine (the valley of Lauterbrunnen); an incredible sight that comes as a surprise no matter how often one has seen it.

Practically every one of the passes crossed by the APR is a pass worth aiming for and worth reaching. Each one is different. Each has its own special attributes; from the remote, slender crest of the Richetli to the broad, tourist-thronged Kleine Scheidegg with its direct view of Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau; from the narrow rocky cleft of the Bunderchrinde to the open grass saddle of the Blattipass whose vista surveys giants of the Bernese Oberland; from the Hohtürli with its plunging depths and glaciers nearby, to the final Col de Chaude which overlooks the Lake of Geneva far, far below.

And it’s not only the valleys and passes that make this route so memorable, but the villages visited on the way. These also add their own individual character to the journey. Switzerland is not, of course, a wilderness land, and the little clusters of habitation are as much a part of the landscape as the snow-draped peaks and glaciers. So you come down at the end of a day to such delightful villages as Weisstannen and Elm, to Griesalp or Gsteig; flower-decked villages whose balconies gaze on mountains you’ve been metaphorically rubbing your nose against all day long. Villages set in a pastoral land where men and women toss hay with long-handled forks, or drape the newly-cut grass to dry on timber cross-frames, which from a distance turn hillsides into parade grounds of hairy elves.

There are marmots in the pastures and chamois on the screes. There are deer and squirrels in the forests, buzzards and eagles overhead, and a million crickets buzzing like fury in the warm summer grasses at your feet.

But it is to the mountains that the Alpine Pass wanderer sets his eyes, and the prospect of a fortnight or so of mountain beauty that captures the imagination for such a long, and at times demanding, walk.

At first, in the east where you rise out of Sargans, the peaks are little-known to all but those who live at their feet. Scantily dressed in snow, their scale is perfect for an introduction; they do not appear forbidding, but wear a certain benevolence, clad as they are with forested skirts, and it seems only right and proper that they should lead you gently to larger sport only when you’ve got into your stride and adjusted to Alpine proportions. Then there will be more than enough to satisfy your need for truly dramatic scenes. There’s the Tödi and Titlis at the next stage up, with snow and ice and rock walls that plunge to green valleys before you enter the Bernese Alps. Here you stride beneath the rock climbers’ slabs of the Engelhörner on the way to the Grosse Scheidegg, and then rub shoulders with the Wetterhorn as you gaze along a monstrous row of peaks seen in profile.

The Bernese Oberland is known to mountain lovers far and wide for the fabled tryptich of Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau that are instantly recognised even by those who may never before have walked in their shadow. To trek below them is a special privilege on a day that takes you from Grindelwald to Alpiglen, to Kleine Scheidegg and the Wengernalp, where for a century and more thousands of mountain wanderers have gazed in awe at avalanches that pour from the Jungfrau. Then across the Lauterbrunnen Valley to the Gspaltenhorn, with its incredibly long ridge, and the huge massif of the Blümlisalp soaring above the Oeschinensee’s deep well.

West of Kandersteg the mountains subside a little, but the Wildstrubel gleams its pristine snows at Adelboden, the Wildhorn looks down on Lauenen, while Gsteig slumbers below the great block of Les Diablerets that marks the far end of the Oberland wall. That leaves just the Vaudois Alps to explore.Unsung they may be, but for all their apparent obscurity, they still have the power to attract, and with some fine valleys cutting between them. From start to finish the Alpine Pass Route has all the scenic variations you could wish to experience within a mountain holiday.

It would be wrong, however, to imagine that this epic route is the preserve of the seasoned trekker. Such a route in wilderness country would indeed be so, but Switzerland provides several options for easing a mountain trek, and backpacking is unnecessary in a land where villages with food shops are met on practically every stage, where hotels, gasthofs and simple massenlagers (communal dormitories) are found all along the route, and where transport alternatives effectively reduce any problems that might occur through bad weather, injury or just plain weariness.

Of course, one could tackle the APR as a long-distance backpacking journey, carrying a tent and camping wild (with discretion) or on campsites where they occur. You can walk every step of the way and carry all the necessities of food and accommodation as though there were no alternatives available. And there can be great satisfaction in doing so.

But not everyone will be tempted, and the Alpine Pass Route is far too good a route to have it restricted to such a hardy mode of travel. There will be many walkers perfectly capable of tackling each individual pass, but who would be daunted by the prospect of carrying a big pack, yet given the wonderful assortment of lodgings available, plus the possibility of easing a particularly long or wet day by taking a postbus, funicular or cable-car, would find that the APR becomes perfectly feasible. This guidebook has been written with such walkers in mind.

There is no marked route of the APR as such. True, an abundance of signposts and waymarks accompany every stage with characteristic Swiss efficiency, but only rarely will you discover a sign that mentions the Alpine Pass Route by name. It will follow, therefore, that the way is open to interpretation. But whichever passes you choose to cross between Sargans and Montreux, end to end the route will demand at least 15 days of consistent walking. Some of these days are in the order of eight, nine or even ten hours of actual physical effort, not to mention rest stops, breaks for food, photographic interruptions etc. However, the longest of these stages may be cut short by an overnight spent, if not in a village, at least in a remote mountain inn, hut or a farm with an outhouse converted to dormitory accommodation. Where these occur, mention is made in the text, together with a note giving the approximate time it’s likely to take to reach it from the beginning of that stage, so readers can decide almost before they set out just how far to walk on any given day.

Similarly, mention is made wherever transport options occur. On one or two stages a spell of road-walking becomes necessary and you may decide that it’s preferable to conserve your energy and take a bus over these sections. Likewise, where cable-cars, gondolas, chair-lifts and funiculars could be taken to facilitate the ascent of a steep section, information is offered to enable you to decide whether or not to take advantage of it. No-one should feel reticent about doing so; the only rules to the game of mountain walking are those set by each individual.