Discovering the majestic Aletsch Glacier: Hiking the Panorama Trail at the greatest Glacier of the Alps

Hiking is one of the main summer activities in Switzerland and the beautiful mountain panorama is always worth the detour. But this time, we wanted to see more and decided to visit the Aletsch Arena in the Bernese Alps to hike along the famous Aletsch Glacier, the greatest (and probably most accessible) glacier of the Alps.

How to get there

The Aletsch Arena stretches from Oberwald to Brig and has an impressive infrastructure in place. Our adventure started in Fiesch where you can park your car and take the train to Betten in order to take the cable car to Bettmeralp, a beautiful mountain village without cars. A small walk across the village already offers a beautiful mountain panorama in a very authentic atmosphere. From there, we took the next cable car that brought us even closer to the sky to Bettmerhorn from where we started the hike.

The hike

First, we followed the sign to the Ice Terrace and soon discovered the most beautiful view on the famous glacier. The view is so beautiful that we could have easily stopped there but we wanted to go even further. Therefore, we followed the sign Roti Chumme – Märjela – Fiescheralp which first leads you down towards the glacier always admiring the beauty of the ice like a milkey way in the middle of the Alps.

After a while, we stopped going down and walked along the glacier until arriving at Roti Chumme, a small picnic area with a view where we decided to stop for lunch.

A bit further, we left the glacier, direction Märjela Gletscherstube, a small mountain cabin with a very cosy bar and toilets. From there, we followed the sign to Fiescheralp. The highlight of this part of the hike is the one kilometre long tunnel which hikers use to cross the mountain chain. On the other side, the glacier is gone and you can enjoy the view on the valley. We arrived at Fiescheralp after more than 4 hours of hiking (of course we had stopped for pictures and videos every 10 minutes).

Once we arrived to Fiescheralp, we decided not to leave the glacier just yet and take another cable car to the Eggishorn, the highest point of the arena. The best reward after a day of hiking was a hot coffee with a view on the glacier from a very cosy restaurant at 2869m altitude.

We ended this very successful day by taking the cable car back down to Fiesch right where we had started to get back to our campervan spot for a quiet evening of camping.

Good to know

The infrastructure of the Aletsch arena is amazing, even though quite expensive (it still is Switzerland). We bought the hiking pass for 75 CHF per person for two days. It costs 55 CHF for only one day and 95 CHF for three days. There are also family tickets available.

The pass includes the entire infrastructure of the arena, all cable cars and even the train that links all the valley stations from Oberwald to Brig. It is, of course, quite an expensive pleasure but we do admit that it is super comfortable and in Switzerland you better don’t get attached to your money anyway as it is ranked to be the most expensive country in the world!

Campervan experience

As usually on our trips in Europe, we travelled Switzerland in our campervan. We were super lucky to find a great campervan spot in Mühlebach, a small village not far from the main attractions where we were able to spend two quiet nights.

From there, we walked down to the Hängebrücke, a suspension bridge that links Mühlebach and Fürgangen, and crossed the bridge in order to get to the Fürgangen train station. Trains to the other valley stations of the arena run every 30 minutes and the tickets are included in the hiking pass which we had purchased.

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We did this hike during our 10 days campervan road trip in the German speaking part of Switzerland. If you want to know more about our itinerary, also read our article Itinerary: 10 days Switzerland road trip in a campervan