This alpine trail starts at the beautiful Bannalp lake, winds its way around a bunch of impressive mountain peaks. It ends in the alpine meadows, high above the Engelberg valley. We love this trail for the dramatic views and for the fun amusements at the end, including a barefoot path, trampoline, playground and toboggan.
Best for those with hiking experience and older children because the uphill climbs take some work and some parts of the trail have some steep slopes on the side, which could be dangerous. We really enjoyed this one and hope you do too.
| Location: | Engelberg, Central Switzerland |
| Trail Start: | Fell cable car (Luftseilbahn), Dorfstrasse 6387 Wolfenschiessen |
| Trail End: | Engelberg Brunni cable car, Wydenstrasse 55, 6390 Engelberg |
| Car: | Free parking in Wolfenschiessen: 46°54’32.6″N 8°23’43.6″E 30 mins from Lucerne, 1hrfrom Zürich |
| Train: | Bus stop: Oberrickenbach, Talstat. 40 mins from Lucerne, 1hr40 from Zürich |
| Trail: | 10 km one way |
| Time: | 4 hrs |
| Difficulty: | moderate – ascent 590 m, descent 412 m |
| Condition: | mountain trail, narrow dirt path, no strollers |
| Elevation: | highest point 1922m |
| Open: | mid June to October (see website for trail status) |
| Cost 2024: | Walenpfad hiking ticket CHF 44/Adult Free with Tell Pass, discount for SBB GA & Half-fare. SBB Junior cards free. |
| More info: | www.bannalp.ch • brunni.ch • webcam |
Location
This trail is located near Engelberg, south of Lucerne. The trail starts at the Bannalp cable car, easily accessible by car or bus. See on Google Maps.
The trail starts at the top of the Bannalp cable car and wraps around the mountains, ending in Brunni-Engelberg (or the opposite direction). You can return to your starting point by train. We prefer this direction because of all the fun amusements for the kids at Brunni, including the barefoot path, picnic areas with grills, alpine slide, and big playground with trampolines and water play.
Hiking map
The trail is 10 km, with about 590m up and 415m down (different maps show different numbers). I show the trail ending at the Härzlisee. There is a chair lift here that will take you down to the Ristis middle station.
But the chair lift is not included in your hiking ticket, because technically, the Walenpfad also includes hiking down to the Ristis station. You can pay a little extra to ride the chair lift. At Ristis, you ride a cable car down to the Engelberg valley, where you can catch a bus then train back to your starting point.
See trail on Komoot • SchweizMobil • AllTrails • OutdoorActive
It’s a typical dirt/rock alpine trail. It requires effort on the uphill climbs and you’ll sweat, but it’s not super difficult and doesn’t require any special equipment besides good hiking shoes. There are some sections with steep slopes, sometimes on both sides. But luckily on this trail, most of these sections have rope fence on the sloped side, which makes it a bit more safe.
Shorter options
At Bannalp, smaller children will enjoy the Bannalp Dwarf trail. At Brunni Engelberg, children can do the Globi Treasure Hunt Trail.
How to get there
This is a one way hike, so you’ll need to take public transportation between your start and end point.
By car: Since this is a one way hike, you’ll need to leave your car where you can pick it up later with public transportation. I recommend parking at the Wolfenschiessen Bahnhof. There is free parking (up to 9 hours, display your blue parking wheel) a couple blocks from the train station as shown below. Then follow the same instructions below for the bus ride.
By public transport: Take a train to Wolfenschiessen Bahnhof. Then catch Bus 331 to Oberrickenbach, Talstat. This bus leaves hourly on the xx:36, a 14 min ride. The bus drops you off at the Fell cable car (Luftseilbahn Fell – Chrüzhütte Bannalp). Your trail starts at the top of this lift.
The trail ends at the Härzlisee where you’ll find the Brunni Barefoot Tickle Trail. From there you can ride a chair lift, then cable car down to the Engelberg valley. At the bottom of the Brunni cable car, you can catch a bus from Engelberg, Brunnibahn to Engelberg, Bahnhof, where you can catch a train back to your car at Wolfenschiessen or home. This train runs hourly on the xx:02, a 20 min ride to Wolfenschiessen.
Planning your day
Tickets
You can buy a Walenpfad Rundreise hiking ticket, which includes the cable cars and the bus/train to connect your start and end points. You can buy this ticket at the ticket machines at Wolfenschiessen and Engelberg train stations or the Bannalp & Brunni cable car ticket office. You can also buy it on the bus from Wolfschiessen, which is what we did.
In 2024, this costs CHF 44/adult and CHF 13.50/child ages 6-15, under 6 free. With SBB GA or Half-fare, it costs CHF 29. With SBB Junior card, kids go free. See current prices.
This hiking ticket does not include the chair lift from the Brunnihütte Tickle Trail down to Ristis. You can hike down, about another 1.5 km depending on which trail you take. But we were so tired, we preferred to ride down to Ristis. This one way chair lift is discounted if you show your Walenpfad ticket. Kids under 16 ride free with a parent.
Discount: Sometimes you can get a slight discount on this ticket by buying it online.
Tip: Our bus driver sold us a child ticket even though we showed him the Junior card. Then our friend showed the Junior card and didn’t have to pay. So be very clear about what discount cards you have when buying your tickets to make sure you don’t get the wrong tickets.
Opening times
From mid-June to mid-September, the Bannalp lift runs every 30 mins from 8:30 to 17:30. In spring and fall, it closes at 16:30. They take a lunch break, so the lift doesn’t run at 12:30. Check current operating times.
At the trail end in Brunni, the last cable down from Ristis to Brunni-Engelberg is 18:00 (only until 17:00 starting late Sept). Check current operating times.
Sample schedule
- In Wolfenschiessen, catch 9:36 bus to Oberrickenbach, Talstat.
- Arrive 9:50. Catch cable car up to Chrüzhütte (on busy days, allow 30 mins for line wait and ride).
- Hike about 5 hours with breaks. Arrive about 15:30 at Tickle Trail.
- Play 30 mins on Tickle Trail
- Ride chair lift down to Ristis
- About 1 hour for alpine slide and playground.
- At 17:00 catch the Brunni-Bahnen cable car (runs about every 20 mins) to the valley.
- Catch 17:29 bus to Engelberg train station (4 min ride). Catch 18:02 train to Wolfenschiessen.
- Arrive 18:22 in Wolfenschiessen to pick up car.
Photo story of the trail
Starting the trail
Riding up the cable car from Fell to Bannalp.
Arriving at the top. The Walenpfad trail starts to your left around the back of the lake.
Follow the Walenpfad sign. Your endpoint is Brunnihütte SAC.
Starting out on the trail.
Near the start you pass a hut cafe.
There’s a nice playground here.
The trail continues to looping around the back of the lake.
Climbing up
Then it climbs up, about 200m elevation gain to the Wallegg viewpoint.
Stop for a snack and drink at the hut.
Walegg Viewpoint
You keep climbing after the hut to reach a beautiful viewpoint looking back down to the lake.
It’s a steep dropoff on both sides of this viewpoint, but there are little fences. Just stick to the path.
The path continues to wind around the mountain. This part of the path along has fences.
A little further and you reach the Wallegg viewpoint looking north toward Luzern. Lots of people stopped here for a picnic. This is at 4.4 km, about halfway, and the highest point of the hike at 1922m.
Down to Walenalp
Now back down about 250m of elevation over 2 km to Walenalp.
Approaching Walenalp at about the 6km point, where you’ll find a hut serving drinks and snacks and picnic area.
Looking back at this hut and where we hiked down.
Schweizer Familie fire pit next to the hut.
Viewpoint at Walenalp.
Up through the forest
After Walenalp, you join a dirt road for a bit. Then the trail head left into the forest.
Continue following signs to Brunnihütte.
Exiting the forest to views of the Engelberg valley.
The Engelberg valley, even nice with the clouds.
Gradual climb around the peaks.
Getting a little tired on the last uphill climb.
Here’s the last stretch to Brunnihütte on the far right.
Ending at Tickle Trail
The trail ends at the Brunni Tickle Trail, a barefoot path around this little pond. You can swim here too, but it’s very cold.
Take the lift down to Ristis to find this playground with the toboggan run.
All done? Ride down the cable car to Brunni and catch the train back to Wolfenschiessen or home.
12 responses
Last section of notes (per above):
5. After starting at the Fell cable car around noon, we arrived at Brunnihutte with only 20 minutes to spare before the chair lift stopped (17:30). Had we missed that, we’d have almost definitely missed the last gondola from Ristis (18:00), and that would have added a LOT more hiking. I’d advise that nobody arrive at the cable car after noon unless they are extremely fast/fit hikers or willing to hike all the way down to Engelberg.
6. There appeared to be a bus from the Brunni-Bahnen gondola station in the valley to the Engelberg train station, the mountains were clearing up and we decided to walk — it was a very lovely 15 minute stroll through the valley.
7. We REALLY wanted to try Alpkase along the hike, but it wasn’t available (with the closed huts). But along our walk to Engelberg we passed the “Wetti-Ladeli” shop which had a sign in the window advertising Alpkase. The owner was so warm and wonderful — he actually sliced up a hunk of Alpkase for us, and we bought a delicious loaf of seeded bread. And he threw in a couple of rolls for our young teenagers for free… then as we left, he came running out of the shop, and we thought there was a problem. But no, he had decided to give each of the kids a free box/pouch of apple juice! It couldn’t have been a more precious interaction. And we strolled over to the nearby park/meadow with benches along a stream, and had a little picnic under the peaks high above. It was incredible!
Adding to the note I posted a moment ago (working within character limit):
2. Many of the huts along the trail (noted in this trail guide) were closed. The first major one (Urnerstaffel) looked boarded up for the season. Oberfeld (with the goats) was open but appeared to be closed until the owner/manager appeared after we’d been relaxing for 10 minutes. Walenalp was completely deserted.
3. Not all of the wires on the trail were metal safety wires…I got shocked by the electric wires at one point (the trail was so wet and I got too close to one when trying to navigate a muddy patch). But that also happened to me once in Gimmelwald many years earlier, so I had no excuse! 🙂
4. In one section of the hike (around 1 mile from Brunnihutte), the cows were getting pretty “riled up” and aggravated. With aggressive posture and loud “mooing”, as they all congregated along the trail. We had to dip down along the hillside to avoid them and then barely made it to the fence turnstile before they blocked it. Does anyone have any tips on what to do if annoyed cows block your path? We are used to hiking in Bison country near the US and know to keep our distance from those animals, but not sure what the right approach would have been had we needed to get around this herd (without trying to scale the fence).
Thank you so much for this review — this hike was the highlight of our entire European vacation (across 4 countries) and there’s no way we would have attempted it without these details. We asked our hotel clerk in Luzern about this one and he rudely dismissed the topic, as if it was not even anything we should be trying.
A few notes from our late July 2025 trip:
1. We took the train and bus from Luzern, and didn’t realize there are two “Fell” gondolas/cable cars up to the top. We took the “correct” one (the Blue one right at the bus stop) to the hut at the top. but there was another one shortly down the road that went up to the lake (Bannalpsee). I suppose that one would have worked, too – just starting from a slightly different location. Also, we arrived around noon and Google maps said the lift was closed from noon to 1. Luckily we ran off the bus, got tickets and were ushered onto the car just in time for it to depart. We were thinking the other folks behind us on the bus would have to wait an hour, but another group mentioned that the operator would continue to send people up as demand required.
One other note — there was a MASSIVE waterfall coming down from the lake right in front of the lift, but I think that may have been due to releasing more water after days of heavy rain.
Hi Pete, thanks for the helpful trip report! I agree that it’s important to get an early start to avoid missing the last cable car down at Ristis. I will adjust some of my instructions based on your feedback. It’s too bad that the huts were all closed. They only open as a side-gig since their main reason to be on the alp is to take care of the cows. So they can close if their priorities take them elsewhere. Regarding aggressive cows, I have experienced this as well. Usually its because of mama cows protecting babies. I’ve also had to climb over fences to avoid the cows in the path. I don’t have any secret strategies. My husband usually just does a cowboy yell to get them moving. I’m more timid.
This is a fantastic write up. Thank you for putting this together. I am planning a hike for a trip I have coming up in November…I’d love a longer hike (~10km) but I’m worried that I won’t be able to start this hike without the cable car. Does it run in November? It seems like it may not…
Unfortunately the mountain lifts for this hike are closed in November. Hope you found an alternative.
I did this last weekend and it was great! I tend to be scared of heights but everything is so well secured (and the trail is wide enough) that I just managed to do it completely fine, which felt like a big achievement to me! I would recommend to do it just how Tanya suggests: from Bannalp to the Brunnihütte, as to me, the most “challenging” part is reaching the Walegg viewpoint from Bannalp. I feel like if it would have been the last stretch of the hike I might have struggled a bit with my focus and stamina. 🙂 After that, the path becomes much wider and more relaxed. Thanks so much for the inspo and good hiking to everyone!
Glad you enjoyed the hike! Thanks for your feedback on the hiking direction. That’s certainly helpful for other hikers.
WOuldn’t parking at Engelberg train station be better? So that we can get to the car immediately after the hike is complete? Is there a particular reason you dont recommend that?
It’s a good point. In general I prefer to leave my car at the end point. But in this case, I didn’t want to have to drive up and back to Engelberg. It seemed more efficient to only travel the stretch from Engelberg to Wolfenschiessen once.
I love the Walenpfad. Such a beautiful and interesting hike.
A note to anyone hiking in the direction Ristis to Bannalpsee who is relying on public transport: it’s a good idea to leave plenty of time to get the Luftseilbahn (cable car) down in time for the Post Bus. Last autumn when I did the hike the bus was only running once an hour with the last ride down at 5pm.
The day I did the hike I almost didn’t make the bus as I discovered the Fellboden-Bannalpsee (red) cable car only has enough space for about 5 people and it was the last scheduled ride that would make it in time! Luckily I got there early enough as by the time the cable car arrived there was a queue of about 15 waiting!
There are two cable cars (Luftseilbahn) operating to/from the Bannalpsee. It’s worth checking the current operating schedule but last autumn it was as follows:
Fell-Chrüzhütte Bannalp (‘the blue one’): 10 min trip every 30min, max capacity 15 people
Fellboden-Bannalpsee (‘the red one’): 8 min duration every 15min, max capacity 5 people
Very good point! It didn’t occur to me that there might be a line, which might cause you to miss the last one down even if you were on time. Aaaaaahhh! Thanks for the extra info.