Faulhorn Summit: Hiking from First & Bachalpsee

THE FAULHORN HIKE TRAILHEAD (FIRST STATION)

The best way to reach First Station (where the hike begins) is to take the cable car from Grindelwald to First and then trek for one hour along the easy path to the Bachalpsee before continuing up to Faulhorn summit. You can hike all the way from Grindelwald to First Station if you want, although it’s not advised. You would be hiking the switchbacks directly under the cable cars and the trail isn’t that interesting.

If you want to skip the line, which is often quite long, you can book your return ticket to Grindelwald to First (return) online in advance. This ticket allows you to ‘skip the line’ and includes a return trip to First with access to First Cliff Walk.

As you can see on the map below you need to go to the Firstbahn Station in Grindelwald, purchase your ticket, and ride all the way up to First then hike to Bachalpsee Lake then continue on to Faulhorn before descending down to Bussalp. You can then walk back to Grindelwald (as we did because we missed the last bus) or take the bus from Bussalp to Grindelwald.

FAULHORN HIKE FROM FIRST TO BACHALPSEE

This part of the Faulhorn hike takes you from First to Bachalpsee with a moderate incline of only 188m over the 3km journey. It is a VERY popular route for tourists. How often can you enjoy an alpine lake above 2000m incline in the Swiss Alps after having only walked for an hour?

Lots of tourists accept the challenge and make the short hike out to the lake. Having said that, I went in the peak of summer and even then it wasn’t too crowded and was a good family-fun vibe on the trail and at the lake. There’s plenty of room and plenty of lakes for everyone.

Although it is a simple section of the Faulhorn Hike, you are surrounded by the epic mountainscape for the entire journey. There are many moments too beautiful to pass by and the 1-hour journey took us 2 hours as we stopped all too often to take it in. I advise you to do the same. Enjoy your surroundings because this is truly one of the most beautiful regions on the planet.

Boys being boys, we decided it would be a great idea to jump into the lake without testing the temperature. Bad idea! It was damn freezing and I was out of that water quicker than I was in it! It took me the whole afternoon to warm up.

After chilling by the lake for a little while I sent the drone up to observe Bachalpsee from an aerial perspective, which was incredible and the views from above were just out of this world.

Along the route, there were still a few glaciers melting, with wildflowers fast replacing the areas where snow was just a few months ago. Amidst all the changes, the cute Swiss marmot curiously dashes between the rocks and down the millions of burrows it has created throughout the region.

After the final steep switchback, we finally made it up to the Berg Hotel on the Faulhorn Summit. What a journey! A hot coffee was in order and wasn’t it brilliant?

There is a full-service restaurant here as well as dorm/hotel rooms. You can expect to pay $25-30 for a meal and our coffee was $5. That isn’t too bad for Swiss prices, especially considering how far up the mountain it is! Here is the view from the BergHotel.

Out the back of the Berg Hotel is an unbelievable view you can’t miss if you visit the hotel. Seriously, take the time to walk out the back. You can look out across Lake Brienz and be inspired by the Hardergrat Ridge on the opposite side of the lake.

FAULHORN TO BUSSALP

You’ve reached the summit and enjoyed the summit but now it’s time to depart. From Faulhorn there are many routes, but a popular one if you are returning to Grindelwald is to head on down to the very small village of Bussalp. Here there is a bus service that will shuttle you to Grindelwald.

You can find the timetable here. If you miss the last bus like us, you will have to walk through Bussalp and then the final 8km to Grindelwald also, which is a bit of a grind after the long journey.

The route down from Faulhorn to Bussalp takes about 2.5 hours and follows the red and white flags painted on the rocks throughout the journey.

Alternatively, you can hike back down past Bachalpsee and return to First to catch the cable car back down. This is a common route but means you need to be back in time for the last cable car, which will depend on the season.

The path is a little less steady on this descent but a little bit of bouldering made the descent pretty fun. The landscape we were heading down into was just incredible as the late afternoon sun poured in through the side. After a while down the hill, we joined back to the road, although it wasn’t long before we were stopped in our tracks by some cows who needed to be herded to greener pastures by the local farmers.

Just before we made it to Bussalp, I turned around and took in the magnificent hill we were descending. Cowbells were ringing and the golden hour was upon us. The cattle farmers were tucked away in their cabins, which were dwarfed by the mountains.

We finally reached Bussalp, but instead of celebrating with a bus journey back to Grindelwald, we were several hours too late. We were so tired we even considered ‘borrowing’ a few of the scooters for rent outside the bus station but decided that we were indeed good people and would walk the 2-hour journey back to Grindelwald despite our tired legs.

BUSSALP TO GRINDELWALD

We put our heads down and hustled along the road. None of the cars stopped to give us a ride even though many had no passengers. Come on Switzerland help these Aussie boys out!

In the end, though it turned out to be a great bit of luck that we were walking instead of sitting inside the bus as we took a forest route back to Grindelwald and halfway through stopped to watch the sunset on Eiger and the other mountains. It turned out to be some epic lighting and we got to see the tip of Eiger reveal itself right during the last moments where the sun was shining on it.

Despite the darkness bringing an end to the day very quickly, we hung out at this viewing spot and took photos for quite some time. It ended up meaning it was completely dark by the time we arrived back in Grindelwald at 10 pm.

OPTION 1: Buy the Swiss Half Fare Card: Switzerland trains, buses, and cable cars are EXPENSIVE! I found the best way to get around cheaply was to buy the Swiss Half-Fare Card before I arrived. It gives you 50% off every regular train, bus, and even many cable cars. It only costs $150 USD but pays itself off in just a few days with many train tickets in Switzerland costing close to $100 alone. If you are staying for more than 5 days, I suggest buying the Swiss Half-Fare Card.

OPTION 2: Buy the Swiss Travel Pass: The second option is to get the Swiss Travel Pass, which gives you unlimited train, bus, and (many) cable car rides but it’s pretty expensive at around $100 USD per day so if you don’t travel each day it isn’t worth it.

OPTION 3: Buy the FLEXI Swiss Travel Pass: The final (BEST) option is to get the FLEXI Swiss Travel Pass, which allows you to buy 8 days’ worth of transit but you can choose the night before if you want to activate the next day. That way you don’t need to travel every day to get your money’s worth, you can just activate the FLEXI Swiss Travel Pass on the days when you are doing sizeable transits. My advice is to book the Swiss Half-Fare Card or the FLEXI Swiss Travel Pass in advance before your trip so it’s ready to go when you arrive.

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