Gemmi Pass

The Gemmi Pass sits at 2,322 metres directly above Leukerbad, reached by cable car from the village in about ten minutes. The pass marks the boundary between Valais and the Bernese Oberland, and the views in both directions are dramatic: back south over the Rhone valley and toward the higher Valais Alps, and north over the high plateau of the Bernese Alps. The summit area has a restaurant and the starting point for several high-alpine walking routes.

From the Gemmi, a straightforward path leads east along the top of the cliff to the blue-green alpine lake of Daubensee, which sits in a glacially carved hollow above the treeline. The full walk from the cable car station to Daubensee and back takes about two hours at a comfortable pace. For more ambitious hikers, the descent to Kandersteg on the other side of the pass is a full day's walk through extraordinary mountain scenery.

things to do sight
A story
The Gemmi Pass trail cut into the cliff face above Leukerbad was blasted out of the rock in the 1740s on the orders of the governor of Bern, allowing mule traffic to pass where only experienced climbers had gone before. It remains one of the most vertiginous walking routes in the Alps — the path carved into the nearly-vertical cliff drops 600 metres in 2 kilometres.