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I am travelling to Switzerland to do some walking staying at Wengen and Zermatt. Can anyone recommend the maps I need to cover these areas?
Thanks
R
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Hi R-
Welcome to My Swiss Alps!
I can recommend a whole lot of maps. Too many. 😉
Online, or paper?
Do you want, as I expect, topographic maps?
This link will give you a good start:
http://www.myswissalps.com/hi king
I like to plan trips with the Swiss Land Office 1:50,000 Wanderkarten, mentioned there. They have the defined hiking trails, die Wanderwege, marked in red.
For real detail, when hiking in a region with potential for serious accidents, I will sometimes carry the 1:25,000 ( not Wanderkarten).
There are a few bookstores left here and there in Switzerland, which carry these maps in entirety. Ask at the tourist office in the train station in the big cities. As noted on the page linked above, convenience stores ( Kiosk, Volg, Aperto) usually have maps for the nearby area. In alpine resorts, yhe sporting goods stores often carry them….such as Intersport.
This link leads to some recommended hikes:
http://www.schweizmobil.ch/en /wanderland/hiking-in-switzerland.html
The Swiss Land Office (SwissTopo) is the ultimate map resource:
There you can find all the paper maps, online maps, and a free App for your smart phone. Shows altitudes!
shop.swisstopo.admin.c h/en/products/maps/Swi ssMapMobile_Abo
This is absolutely the most complete professional map from them, with a great depth of professional cartography tools. Actually, I use it a lot when I am looking at specific places and altitudes:
I have turned on Hiking Trails.
The color coding is explained here:
http://www.alpenwild.com/stat icpage/trail-signs-in-the-swiss-alps/
That should get you started. 😉
Slowpoke
Girdham953 – I’m doing the same thing out of the same 2 towns in Aug!
There is a ton of great stuff here about hiking, where to stay and how to get around. And the best part is that everyone, as you could tell from the post, is very helpful.
Forgot to ask – when are you going?
Slowpoke
Wow thanks that’s very helpful.
Going in June. Hoping it’s a nice time to take advantage of the area.
When in June? It matters. Could be great or impossible at some of the trails near your targets. Altitude really matters in June.
For example, this outstanding trail (2300 to 2000 meters altitude) rarely opens before June 15th, and is usually a sure thing only in the last week of June or early July:
http://www.myswissalps.com/hi king/maennlichen-kleinescheidegg
Snow hangs on near Tschuggen, where the trail does not get much sun.
Check the trails on this page…scroll down:
http://www.myswissalps.com/hi king
Or, go to the pages for Zermatt and Wengen, and check out
“What to do”
Slowpoke
PS –
The Hotel Eiger is now the Eiger Apartments in Wengen. The “times Square” picture was taken from the balcony of one of the rooms.
Attachments:Our hotel in Zermatt had hiking maps and lots of advice. So ask where you are staying. And visit the tourist office.
Hi R
The hotels in Wengen also have a very user friendly, fairly simple map they all hand out. I believe it was also available at the train station too. It lists and shows on the map about 30-40 hikes with some descriptions on the more popular ones. It also provides the appropriate hiking times for each hike and some elevations as well. I found It’s simple design to be very helpful. The concierge or hotel staff will likely be very helpful as well. Hiking is very popular in Wengen so the hotel staff is usually quite knowledgeable.
The map available at the hotels in Zermatt I found to be OK but not as good as the one in Wengen. The trails were fairly well marked in Zermatt but again not as good as Wengen. For instance we occasionally would come to a fork on the trail that we had to quess which way to go as they weren’t all marked. This was true on the trail to Zmutt as well as from Riffelalp to Riffelsee. We did find our concierge to be very helpful though.
I don’t have any personal experience with the local tourist office but I suspect they would be very helpful as well. Mark
I like the 1:60 000 Kümmerley & Frey walking maps (laminated so good for weather proof)
http://www.swisstravelcenter. ch/kf_wanderkarten.htm l
I’ve never got lost using one of these in combination with the signage on the ground
The Swiss topo 1:50000 walking version is also a good bet. Note that they are all being relaunched with new cartography (for the first time in about 50 years!)
http://www.swisstopo.admin.ch /en/knowledge-facts/maps-and-more/new-national-maps/hiking-map.html
Hi 1960man-
Indeed, the 1:50,00 Wanderkarte was what I note to be a good scale, and the red trail lines are nice.
If Kummerly and Frey at 1:60,000 ( which I have used in the past and now abandoned, because SwissToppo now offers the maps with red-marked trails) ) uses the same data set as Swisstopo, why not go for 1:50,00 and pick up a bit more detail? If they don’t use the Swisstopo data set, is theirs as good? I tend to have faith in the quality of the SwissTopo office and cartographers.
On the ground, the extra detail of the 1:25,000 ( non -Wanderkarten) has helped me in areas where there are lots of trails, and not so clear topography, because I can use the detail of the buildings to help me.
For example, near Eriswill, coming over the hill from Wyssachen and Dürrenbühl.
Slowpoke
Thank you so much for all the great advice, it’s really helpful. I’ll take a look at all the recommendations.
X
When are you traveling?
Slowpoke
Oooops-
missed your answer before.
When in June? It’s critical for hiking at higher altitudes.
Slowpoke
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