Multi-Day Hiking in Switzerland

This section extends the Hiking in Switzerland section, giving suggestions for multi-day hikes. Using these suggestions you can make two-day weekend trips or longer excursions, taking advantage of the many hotels, guesthouses and huts dotted along the way. The difficulty levels are generally similar to those of the day hikes.

Hike map

Here's a map of Switzerland showing (roughly) where the hikes are. Click on the numbers, or use the summary below.

For a zoomable guide to all the Swiss hikes, whether half-day strolls or multi-day treks, see this Google Earth file: Swiss hikes kmz. It shows the rough location of each of the Swiss hikes, and the accompanying bubbles contain links back to the hike descriptions here at the Activity Workshop.

	Name	Length	Distance	Everests	Gradient	Summary
1	Jura Ridgeway	17 days	310 km	1.4	190	Traversing the whole Jura range from Dielsdorf north of Zürich to Borex near Nyon.
2	Zürichsee Panoramaweg	2 days	28 km	0.07	110	Easy and panorama-rich walk along the Zürichsee from Zürich to Feldbach.
3	Toggenburger Höhenweg	5 or 6 days	91 km	0.50	230	A varied, scenic route through north-east Switzerland.
4	Alpine Pass Route	19 days	354 km	2.2	260	Spectacular route crossing a chain of passes across the heart of the country.
5	Strada Alta Leventina	2 or 3 days	49 km	0.27	180	Easy route along the side of the Valle Leventina in Ticino.

In this table, the 'Gradient' column refers to how much climb and descent a walk involves. It is basically just for comparison, in arbitrary units of milli-Everests-per-marathon. Obviously a lower number means a flatter walk, a higher number means more climb and descent per distance walked.

Notes on the hikes

Please note that all times and prices are approximate, and may be subject to change since the hikes were researched. Use common sense and backtrack or shortcut if necessary.

The icon means that a GPS was used to record the hike, and so waypoints and 3d plots are available. The icon means that photos are available. Recently added are the Kmz files, which you can open in Google Earth or Google Maps to show the routes - these are indicated by the icon.

Also, please feel free to share your experiences. Any additional information, corrections, suggestions and comments would be gratefully received by email - all due credit will be given.

Other multi-day hikes

Name	Summary	Link
Trans-Swiss trail 1	A north-to-south route from Porrentruy (in the northeast) to Chiasso (southern Ticino)	wandersite.ch (German)
Trans-Swiss trail 2	An east-to-west trail from Rorschach (by the Bodensee) to Geneva	wandersite.ch (German)
Jakobsweg	Another route from the Bodensee to Geneva, part of the pilgrim's trail	jakobsweg.ch
Walkers' haute route	High altitude route from Chamonix (France) to Zermatt	Dawn DuPriest
Rätikon Tour	Nine-day tour where Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria meet	raetikontour.com (German)

There are also some brief details about other multi-day hikes available. And if you found any of that useful, you may also be interested in trying some Snowboarding in Switzerland as well.