The Lötschental, Switzerland’s Hidden Paradise Just Minutes from the Berner Oberland

Discover the Lötschental

At the risk of some Swiss person trying to strangle me for letting out their secret, I am going to share a place with you this week that may be as close to paradise as one gets on planet Earth: the Canton of Valais’ Upper Lötschental Valley.

Tucked neatly along the border with the Canton of Bern, the valley is just minutes through the old Lötschberg tunnel from Kandersteg and the famous Oschinensee but sees a fraction of the visitors every year. A part of the Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch UNESCO World Heritage site, the Lötschental is, frankly, beautiful beyond words.

Humans have more or less conquered the Alps with gondolas and funiculars in the valleys both north and south of here (think Lauterbrunnen Valley), but the Lötschental (at least past the gondola at the small town of Wiler) remains relatively untamed. Trails and a single narrow road to Fafleralp are the only access to this stunning and incredibly sensitive glacial wonderland.

This week we embark on a fairly easy 10 km (6.5 mile) loop of the Upper Lötschental, taking in staggering vistas and exploring the evolution of this highly dynamic landscape. If you are looking for an outing from the Berner Oberland that almost guarantees you will escape the crowds and see the best of the Swiss Alps without much struggle, look no further.

Thanks for joining us!

You can follow along with our walk using the interactive map above

A Road to Some of the World's Finest Hiking

Our walk starts from the Fafleralp campground at the end of the road in the Lötschental valley. To give a sense of just how remote the Lötschental and Fafleralp are, the first cars only made it as far as Blatten (about 3.5 km down the valley from Fafleralp) in 1954. Fafleralp arose as a hotel site in the Bel Epoch era (a favorite destination of English actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin) and the road to it was only completed in the 1970s.

Before the road, mules were the only way to semi-efficiently move supplies and people into the Upper Lötschental but, for better or for worse, today's journey is much more convenient. We forgo the mules for a 40-minute train from Lake Thun to Goppenstein and a 35-minute PostAuto bus. The Post route takes us through the small towns of Wiler and Blatten in the lower Lötschental and finally on to the end of the line at Fafleralp.

While I am by no means complaining about the efficient public transit system that makes most of our trips possible, I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to experience Switzerland before the boom of tourism in the Bel Epoch. Switzerland was among the poorest countries in Europe, and, by all accounts, traditional communities like those tucked in the remote Lötschental could have been a world away.

From Fafleralp, several trails leave from the campground towards Anenhüte, the boxy mountain hut visible high up in the glacially carved valley. We start our loop by heading straight up through the bottom of the valley.

The path up the Lötschental from Fafleralp

Looking up the Upper Lötschental from the trail

Where walls of ice once stood a few hundred years ago, cows now happily munch away on the grass. Given the historically recent uncovering of the landscape, there are few human-made structures beyond Fafleralp, aside from mountain huts.

The first 3 km (2 miles) of the trail gently weaves across the valley floor between the banks of the raging Lonza River on the left and the steep glacially carved valley walls on the right. As you move up the valley, the views keep getting better and better and it quickly becomes apparent that this is some of the finest hiking on Earth.

A Perfect Lesson in Alpine Geography

Eventually, the trail passes a stunningly clear pool, the Grundsee, fed by natural springs bubbling out of the talus slopes, the aprons of blocky rock tumbling down from the valley walls. Grundsee is approximately the 1850 extent of the Langgletcher or Long Glacier which carved the entire Lötschental and, today sits about 2 kilometers up slope of here.

The stunningly clear waters of Grundsee

This glacial foreland sits in the bottom of a perfect ‘U’-shaped valley which has been flattened at its base by shifting alluvium or coarse river gravels. Over the last couple of centuries since deglaciation, the Lonza River, fed by glacial and snow melt on the peaks high above, has swept across the valley bottom depositing sediment derived from the glaciers and rock fall.

Eventually, the trail steepens and gains a bit of elevation revealing the Langgletcher’s recent lateral moraines. These piles of crushed rock are pushed to the sides of the flowing ice forming long, and relatively unstable, ridges when the ice retreats.

Around 3 kilometers into the walk, the trail begins to climb up towards a bench in the valley high above paralleling the steep latter moraines of the glacier. Eventually, you are able to peer over the edge of the moraine revealing the remnants of the glacial ice that carved the valley.

The Lötschental's Glacial Foreland

Lateral moraines of the Langgletscher

The edge of the right lateral moraine, now just off the trail, lies about 50 meters above the ice giving a good sense of the staggering glacial volume loss over the last few decades. When the moraines were deposited, their upper edge was the elevation of the ice...

Looking down on the Langgletcher

Preserving the Alps for the Future

A few kilometers into the hike, around the 1850s glacial extent, the trail hits the edge of the cantonal nature preserve and we leave the cows behind for pristine, untouched alpine vegetation. This area was set aside by the Canton of Valais in the 1990s to preserve the sensitive glacial foreland landscape.

The resulting diversity and quantity of Alpine flowers on display in the Upper Lötschental around Langgletcher has to be one of the greatest I have ever seen in Switzerland.

While I don’t think Switzerland would really be Switzerland without its cows roaming the high Alps and ringing their bells, there is no question that they don’t do any favors to the native plant communities. Tromping through the meadows and overgrazing, the cows naturally disturb these sensitive plants. This is of particular concern at high elevations where life is already quite tough.

If Switzerland’s native vegetation is to stand half a chance under a rapidly changing climate, something needs to give. Eventually, plant communities will run out of space as they race uphill towards cooler temperatures. This said, the competition between cultural and environmental preservation continues to rage across much of Switzerland with environmentalists calling for the removal of livestock from the Alps and heritage groups calling for the preservation of traditional agriculture.

In the modern era, the grazing of cows as far up into the high alps as possible cannot be a reasonable expectation of rural Swiss communities. Some, like those at Fafleralp, have embraced visitors and the change of circumstance, but other communities continue to push back.

I am honestly not sure there is a perfect answer here, particularly in a small country where space is at a premium, but I think conservation projects like here in the upper Lötschental are a good start. The abundance of native plants within the conservation area stands in stark contrast to that just beyond it.

Excluding grazing on land that was historically covered by glaciers may offer a broader solution. These formerly glacial landscapes are rapidly developing and hold immense biological significance that cannot reasonably be claimed to have agricultural roots. Though these areas are somewhat few and far between today, over the next couple of centuries, they are likely to expand rapidly (creating a myriad of other challenges in their wake, which we can save to discuss on another day).

But I digress, back to the trail.

A stunning wildflower display

Up to Anenhütte and the Langgletcher

From the valley bottom, we climb about 500 vertical meters (1600 ft) to the privately owned Peter Tscherrig Anenhütte named after the nearby Anungletscher and mountaineer Peter Tscherrig who helped develop the path to the site.

The original hut, built in the same location in the 1990s, was destroyed by an avalanche in 2007. The following year, the current Anenhütte opened its doors to hikers and climbers.

Anenhütte in the Upper Lötschental

For mountaineers, the hut conveniently lies at 2358 m (about 7,700 ft) above sea level, about mid-way between Fafleralp (1784 m, about 5,800 ft, above sea level) and the top of the Lötschenlüke, the glacially filled 3154 m (about 10,000 ft) pass between the Langgletscher and the Aletschgletscher. It offers both a nice warm bed and meal as well as the opportunity to get an early start on climbing.

While I am not the biggest fan of the hut’s boxy modern construction, its location on the edge of a large bench in the valleys bedrock, offers unquestionably spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and glaciers. Also, they have nice pie making it a great option to stop for lunch. Just be sure to purchase something if you intend to use their facilities including the benches on the terrace.

Just up valley a bit from the hut, the high alpine Anungletscher feeds into the Langgletscher. As of the time of this writing in 2024, the quickly melting, debris covered, toe of the Langgletscher remains in the valley just below Anenhütte, but I wouldn’t anticipate this lasting for very long. Based on photos in the hut, the ice retreat and volume loss has been immense over the last decade and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the glacier retreat beyond the Anungletscher over the next decade.

The hiking trails heading further up the valley towards Anungletscher die out just a few kilometers past the hut giving way to technical terrain, but it is definitely worth it to head out and back before returning to the hut to continue on your loop.

The terrain flattens out beyond the hut and, for very little additional effort, you are thrust headlong into a wild and wonderful mountain landscape with gorgeous blue lakes, big waterfalls, rushing rivers, steep cliffs, and glaciers both above and below.

An incredible mountain landscape just beyond Anenhütte

We turned back to the hut just before a side trail which drops down to the remnant ice at the toe of the Langgletcher. If you are a bit more adventurous than we are, there is an option to loop back to the hut from here by heading down on the trail to the ice and then back up to the hut via the Kletersteig Anenhütte. This short via ferrata consists of a series of fixed cables and metal rings which allow you to climb the cliff out of the glacial valley. If you are going to do this route, be sure to bring the appropriate experience and safety equipment (harnesses, helmets, and the like). We were happy enough to double back by foot the way we came and this worked perfectly fine.

Back Down Valley

Back at Anenhütte we switch to the higher path back to Fafleralp. This tack descends (slightly less steeply than the path up) to the Jegital, a small side valley hosting the remains of the Jegigletscher, before contouring the valley wall most of the way back to the campground.

The streams and wildflowers flowing down from Anenhütte are like something out of a dream. The water gurgles pleasently as it makes its way down slope through the low vegetation, mostly made up of alpine rose, blueberries, dwarf juniper, and heather which eek out an existence on the barest of soils.

The views down the valley are stunning almost the entire way back to Fafleralp and offer a nice overview of the progression of vegetation. Upslope of Fafleralp, the pastureland gives way to forest which eventually thins into high alpine vegetation and eventually bare rock high on the slopes above the valley.

Coming down the valley from Anenhütte through stunning alpine vegetation

Along the way, you contour the Gugginbärg, a large continuous mountain face, and eventually pass the hollow that forms Guggisee. On calm days, this small lake offers a perfect mirror of the high peaks. With several benches, it’s the perfect place for a snack or a short break.

Following the topography along a small bench, the trail continues into the forest offering some pocket views down on the Lonza River. You pass a small grouping of houses at Guggistafel before eventually emerging from the forest at the mouth of the Innerstal, just outside of Fafleralp campground.

We caught the bus from Fafleralp back to Goppenstein, but there are several trails heading down valley from here that look amazing. The small communities at Blatten and Wiler down slope also appear fantastically traditional and we will be back to explore them soon.

We hope you enjoyed our visit to the upper Lötschental. If you liked this week’s visit, check out the other articles in our Into the Alps series, where we explore the natural and cultural history of the Alps. Stay tuned for additional articles on our Swiss travels every week!

Until next time, gute Reise, and feel free to leave a comment on one of our social media platforms!

Looking out over the lower Lötschental

The lovely Guggisee reflecting the mountain peaks beyond