The Pizol Heidi trail is an easy way to have an alpine experience with a child. The short trail has several activities along the trail to help motivate your child to keep walking. The kids get a little trail passport that they stamp along the way as they complete the stations.
It is close to Zurich, the trail is pretty easy, and the views fantastic. It’s a great choice for new hikers and visitors.
Contents
| Region: | Eastern Switzerland – Heidiland |
| Starting point: | Bad Ragaz gondola |
| By car: | Parking: Loisstrasse 50, Bad Ragaz 1hr10 from Zurich |
| By public transport: | Bus stop: Bad Ragaz, Pizolbahn 1hr30 from Zurich |
| Trail: | 4.1 km loop |
| Time: | about 2 hours with playtime |
| Difficulty: | easy |
| Condition: | wide dirt path, ok for strollers |
| Elevation: | |
| Open: | July to mid-October, weather dependent |
| Cost: | gondola Adult CHF 36, Child CHF 18 SBB Half-fare and Junior cards accepted |
| Extras: | restaurants and picnic area |
| More info: | www.pizol.com • webcam • forecast |
Gallery
Location
This Heidi trail is located in the Pizol mountain resort southeast of Zürich. To access the train, you need to ride a gondola from the valley station.
Heidi Trail Overview
Here is the summer hiking map for this area. The Heidi trail is accessed by the Bad Ragaz – Pardiel gondola.
- Pizol Bad Ragaz gondola station
- Exit gondola at Paradiel station. Heidi trail starts here.
- Yellow line is the Heidi trail.
- Optionally ride up chair lift for bigger mountain views near Pizolhütte.
- Bad Ragaz train station. From here, you can take a bus to the gondola station.
Trail map
This 4.1 km trail weaves through alpine meadows and forests, with fantastic views the whole way. The trail takes about 1hr30 to walk with kids, but you’ll probably spend much more time if you stop at all the stations.
See trail on Komoot
The first half of the trail is flat and easy going on a wide dirt/gravel trail. Then the trail does some uphill switchbacks for about 10mins gaining about 100m in elevation over 1 km. Then it gradually descends back to your starting point on a mild dirt trail.
It’s not a difficult trail. Small children can walk it, though they may get tired at points. The path is possible with strollers.
Other Pizol hikes: We also like two other hikes in the Pizol area, the easy and short Pizol Panoramaweg and the challenging Pizol 5 Lake Hike.
How to get there
This trail is reached by the Pizolbahn Bad Ragaz gondola, not Pizolbahn Wangs gondola. Make sure you go to the correct one.
By car:
From Zurich, you take the A3 freeway south towards Chur. Get off at exit 12-Bad Ragaz and follow signs to Pizolbahnen. The gondola station is at Loisstrasse 50, 7310 Bad Ragaz. There is a large parking lot next to the gondola station.
By train:
Take a train to Bad Ragaz, then a bus to Bad Ragaz, Pizolbahn. The bus drops off at the gondola station.
Tickets
For the Heidi trail, you’ll need the Heidipfad ticket, which is a return ticket on the Bad Ragaz – Pardiel gondola. In 2023, this return ticket costs CHF 36/adult, CHF 18/child 6-15, free under age 6.
Discount for SBB GA, Half-fare and Swiss Travel Pass. Free for children with a SBB Junior card. They offer a family ticket for CHF 90, which includes 2 adults and all children under 17.
When you purchase the ticket, they will give you a trail passport for each child.
Operating times
The cable car is typically open 9:00-17:00, closed during lunchtime during the week. See website for current prices and opening times.
Photo story of the trail
Take the gondola up to the middle station at Pardiel. At the top of the cable car, there’s a nice playground before you start the trail. Have some fun, but don’t get too tired before you head out on the trail.
Here is the entrance to the trail.
Big views.
Each child will receive a little Heidipfad passport that they can stamp at each station. There are twelve stations along the trail as indicated on the map above. I’ll show pics of some of them below.
Each station has a goat and you stick the card in the goat’s mouth to get your stamp. At the end, you put your completed card in Heidi’s postbox at the valley cable car station, giving you a chance to win a prize.
Here’s a little hut near the beginning of the trail. There are lots of small streams and waterfalls along the trail.
At station #2, the kids can ring some church bells.
At station #4, there is a barefoot trail where you walk over various surfaces with bare feet.
At station #5, there is a picnic area, grill pit with firewood, playground, and zipline. The trail used to have storyboards (shown above) along the trail telling the Heidi story. These storyboards have been consolidated and placed next to this playground.
At station #7, there is an outdoor cafe with a great view and a slide to entertain the little ones. I’ve never eaten there so I can’t say anything about the quality of the food.
A nice swing with a view.
After the cafe, the trail heads uphill for a bit with a few switchbacks. Kids will probably complain on this part, but this section is short, about 10 mins, so don’t get discouraged. Pretty soon the trail flattens out again and loops back on an easy trail to the cable car.
At station #9, you can milk fake goats.
Where to eat
We always eat at Berggasthaus Pardiel, the first hotel/restaurant you see on the trail, close to the cable car station. Although the tables didn’t face out toward the view, it had a small playground that enabled us to enjoy our meal at a normal pace.
Plus, the food was delicious – or at least, I ordered well. I always get the “capuns,” a regional speciality which is a dumpling wrapped in spinach, baked with a cream sauce and topped with speck. It was soooooo good!
11 responses
Great article. Went there today and really enjoyed the trail and the fantastic views.
A small thing: please update Paradiel -> Pardiel.
Glad you had a good time and thanks for the catching the typo. I’ll fix that right now!
We did this trail in October on the last weekend it was open (sorry only getting round to posting now!) We had a really lovely day, did it with two two year-olds and a baby when friends came to visit. My son walked most of the way on his own and just loved stamping his book at the goats, ringing the bells and the play stations (although less keen on getting freezing mud between his toes at the 'foot spa'!). We had fantastic weather so the views (and photos) were amazing. The pushchair was quite hard work to push up the hill so if I had to do it again with a pushchair I might do the trail backwards, although the views are a fantastic reward when you make it up there. We only moved to Switzerland in June and I just wanted to say a huge thank you for this blog which has been invaluable for us in helping us to start to explore Switzerland with little children and so we did several of your trips over the summer. (Particularly enjoyed the Tierliweg at Elm too in a similar vain to this walk, the wooden animals were very good for encouraging my son to walk and he managed it all on his own.)
We did this trail for the first time today and the kids LOVED it!
One thing worth mentioning is that if you have a season card for the lifts, then you need to stop at the ticket office and ask for the card for the Heidipfad (which they usually hand out when you buy a lift ticket). If the line at the bottom of the gondola is long, then you can also get these from the lift operator at the top (he did ask to see our season passes).
if you don't get the card then your kids will be sad, because getting the goat to 'bite' your card is the best part.
Hi Tanya,
I found your blog today and I realise how much I was missing here in Switzerland! Great blog, very helpful. Thanks for sharing all your experience.. 🙂
Hi Odette. Thanks for the comment. I definitely need to update this post with the new gondola. Thanks for the reminder. Glad you had a good time despite the snow 🙂
Hi, we just did this hike and it was beautiful but already almost 100% covered in snow. The Gondola now leaves from Matells/Sargans, just before you reach Bad Ragaz. We had lunch at Alp Schwarzbuel, which is about 20 mins (adult walking time) along the Heidipfad. It has beautiful views but is very basic. It's probably better to eat at one of the restaurants by Pardiel. Thanks for the recommendation!
August 2007: the Bad Ragaz-Pizol gondola is closed, I think they’re going to build a new one ready for the winter. We drove toward Sargans, and took the Pizol gondola in Wangs (I think that was the name of the town). Couldn’t do the Heidi trail but got off at Furt (I think), the second stop on the gondola, and had a lovely lunch and lovely views on a short walk. Lots of kiddy activities, a lovely waterfall, a stream to paddle in. We went with a 4-year old, a 2-year old and a 2-month old. It was lovely!
Thanks for posting this Tanya! We did this hike today with Ava and the views were stunning. Cows, sheep, towering mountain peaks, waterfalls, flowers for picking — it was perfect although a much longer excursion than we were planning for at Ava’s slow pace. We will definitely go back to Bad Ragaz!
I thought I’d check the blog for some ideas for tomorrow – this looks perfect! Astrid – maybe we’ll see you on the trail!
Tanya, thanks so much! What beautiful photos, and helpful, detailed descriptions. I’m so impressed at all the weekend travelling you do… This post does it, we’re going next weekend, I’m determined. Ikea can wait.