Lauterbrunnen Valley
Seventy-two waterfalls dropping from vertical walls, in a valley half a mile wide.
Duration
3 hrs – 5 hrs
Difficulty
●●○○○
Best time
May to September, in the morning
Open
Every day
Entry price
To confirm
The Lauterbrunnen valley is a glacial trough: vertical walls hundreds of metres high, a flat floor eight hundred metres wide, and seventy-two waterfalls dropping straight off the cliffs. Tolkien stayed here in 1911 and it inspired Rivendell.
The Staubbachfall is nearly three hundred metres and disperses into mist before reaching the ground — hence its name, the dust fall. The Trümmelbach falls, inside the mountain, drain the glaciers of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau: twenty thousand litres a second through ten subterranean cascades, reached by a lift cut into the rock.
Getting there
Train from Interlaken Ost, twenty minutes. The village is at the valley floor; everything is on foot or by local bus.
What the price covers
the valley and its paths are free; the train from Interlaken and the Trümmelbach falls are charged
What to bring
- Walking shoes
- Windbreaker
Rules on site
The Trümmelbach falls only open from April to early November, and it is cold and wet inside even in summer. The flow depends on snowmelt: at its highest in June and July, weak in September.