This hike along the north shore of the Walensee lake has beautiful views of the lake and mountains. The main attraction the tallest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland, the Seerenbachfälle.
This hike goes through fields and forest, with some steep elevation gain, stairs, and rocky paths. Best for hikers and kids 8+ with sturdy shoes and some hiking experience .
This hike is particularly nice in spring and fall, when other mountain transport is closed. Your journey includes a ferry ride, which has a limited schedule so organize well before heading out.
Contents
| Location: | Eastern Switzerland |
| Address: | Ferry dock: Hauptstrasse 23, 8872 Weesen |
| Car: | Park in Betlis: 47°08’09.5″N 9°08’41.7″E 50 mins from Zurich |
| Train: | Train to Murg, then ferry to Quinten about 1hr30 from Zurich HB |
| Trail: | 10.7 km one way (7.5 km option below) |
| Condition: | lumpy dirt trail, no strollers |
| Skill: | moderate |
| Open: | best May through October |
| Prices: | ferry ride about CHF 23.50 for adult, children half price, under 6 free |
| More info: | www.amden-weesen.ch |
Overview
This trail is along the north side of the Walensee lake, southeast of Zürich. In this post, I describe the one way hike from Weesen – Betlis – Quinten, visiting the Seerenbach waterfalls along the way.
In Quinten, we typically have lunch at one of the lakeside restaurants. Then take a ferry either to the Murg train station or your car back at Betlis or Weesen.
Important: So make sure to coordinate carefully with the ferry schedule, which run infrequently and have different schedules in each season. More about that below.
Options
For a shorter hike, we suggest skipping the first 4km by either driving or taking a ferry from Weesen to Betlis.
You can also do this hike in reverse, starting with a ferry from Murg to Quinten, then hiking to Betlis or Weesen.
Hiking map
The map below shows the full hike from Weesen to Quinten. If you are starting in Betlis, just skip the first 4 km (see shorter trail map).
See trail map on SchweizMobil • Komoot • OutdoorActive
For the full trail, actual walking time is about 4 hours, but I’d plan about 5-6 hours to allow for time to admire the waterfall and take pictures. If you are starting in Betlis, plan for about 3 hours.
The first hour from Weesen to Betlis is on a paved road along the lakeside. The last 2 mins before Betlis is a narrow one lane road where you’ll need to watch carefully for the occasional car.
In Betlis, there is a small car park, toilets, and grassy picnic area along the lake. Then about 40 mins on an access road to reach the falls. It’s a narrow footpath to the viewpoint close to the falls. Then back down towards the lake, following a footpath the rest of the way to Quinten. See the photo story below for more details.
How to get there
There are many options, but here’s are the most convenient options.
By public transport:
Take a train to Ziegelbrücke, then a bus to Weesen. If you want to ride the ferry to Betlis, get off at Weesen, See which is near the ferry dock. If you want to walk the full distance, get off Fli, Seestern (two more stops past Weesen, See) and walk on Betliserstrasse towards Betlis.
At the end of the hike in Quinten, ride the ferry to Murg and walk about 5 mins to the Murg train station, where you can ride home.
By car:
For cars, you can park in either Weesen (Hauptstrasse 25, 8872 Weesen) or Betlis (see on map). At the end of the hike in Quinten, take the ferry back to your car in either Betlis or Weesen.
To reach the Betlis parking, drive to Weesen, then turn right on Betliserstrasse. After a few minutes, you’ll reach a stop sign where the road turns into one lane. Traffic on this road is controlled, meaning that traffic flows only one direction, switching every 15 minutes. You can drive to Betlis at xx:00-05 and xx:30-35 each hour. This gives enough time for the cars to drive the 2 km to Betlis before cars start driving the other direction.
In Betlis, there is room for about 50 cars to park. Last time we were there, it cost CHF 2/hr, payable in coins. On busy weekends, the spots can fill up fast. Make sure to pay for plenty of parking time, just in case you stay longer on the trail than anticipated.
Ferry Schedule – check this carefully!
Before even leaving the house, check the Walensee ferry schedule, which is very limited and varies by day of the week and season. Make sure you carefully read the codes on the ferry times. Some boats only run on weekdays, others only Sundays, some boats don’t stop at all destinations.
In any case, make sure the ferry is running and that you’ll have enough time to do your hike before the last ferry of the day.
Photo story
Below I show pictures going from Quinten to Betlis when we did the hike in late September. I’ll replace these pics soon with summer pics going the opposite direction.
The small village of Quinten is charming, with a couple cafes and little shops. We liked this little shop selling jams, honeys, chutneys, with lots of interesting flavor combos. The lady was really nice and spoke some English as well.
Looking up at the cliffs above you.
The views across the lake are nice too.
About 20 mins after Quinten, the trail narrows and gets very steep and climbs 300m over 1km. We were all sweating! But thankfully, our kids didn’t complain.
At about the 4.5km mark, after you’ve started to walk down again, you reach this great picnic area, with fire pits, wood and a little tee-pee when we were there. The kids would have loved to stay here and explore but I was still under the delusion that we might make that last ferry, so I hurried us on down the trail.
We passed a little farm that had the most adorable baby goats that jumped and romped all over. So adorable!
You’ll pass a couple river and waterfalls, as shown below, which are nice. But the big one is still coming.
Waterfalls!
At about the 6km mark, you’ll reach a bridge that crosses the river flowing from the big waterfall shown above, the Seerenbachfälle, the tallest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland, so they say. FYI: the waterfall is not always running. It’s usually roaring in spring during the snow melt and we’ve seen it running big in fall after some rain storms. But we’ve also been in the middle of August and it was completely dry.
Keep walking and you’ll exit the forest into some big green fields. There’s a short detour to your right, which will take you up very close to the waterfall. I recommend doing it, plan about 20-30 minutes for this detour. There’s also a nice picnic area with fire pits on that detour trail, right before you enter the forest.
Below is the detour trail through the forest, the waterfall lookout area with a bench and small fenced off area next to the falls (you might get wet), and a closeup of the falls in May.
Continue to Betlis
To reach Betlis, continue following the path as it joins a paved road. More details about this part of the trail on my Walensee Waterfall post: The road leads all the way to Betlis, where you’ll find a cafe with a playground and the ferry dock. Along the lake shore, you’ll find some picnic benches, fire pits and and places to swim.
Follow signs across the field to the Betlis ferry dock and catch the ferry back to Weesen. If you miss the last ferry, don’t stress. Just walk along the paved road back to Weesen. It takes about an hour. We did it and survived.
Did you have fun? Did you miss the ferry? Let me know how liked it. Happy hiking!
8 responses
I wanted to try extending this hike, so I started in Walenstadt rather than Quinten (adding another ~3.5 hours hiking time). In my opinion, it wasn’t worth the extra effort. There’s a long initial incline from Walenstadt (~1.5 hours) on a gravel road, without much view at the top before heading right back down the mountain through a forest trail. It was a good challenge, but made the second incline after Quinten more tiring. I should have just started at Quinten, as recommended in the post!
One note on the map/directions – it looks like the trail starts at Au, rather than Quinten. I liked the walk from Au to Quinten (~20 minutes), and would recommend doing that stretch as a nice warm up to the incline, but I wanted to point it out since it could be confusing, with the ferry stopping at both Au and Quinten.
Thank you for the detailed directions! It really helped clarify how all the pieces fit together with the ferry.
Thanks for the detailed report! I’ve always wondered about starting in Walenstadt and now I don’t have to do it. We also started in Au, but it’s just not as convenient for the ferry schedule. So rewrote the post to start in Quinten instead. I agree, that little section between those two villages is quite nice. Glad you had a good day.
This is indeed a great hike! One note: right now the ferries are not yet running due to COVID and so we figured we would drive to Betlis and hike part of the way to Quinten and back. However, this is a very popular area, especially on weekends, and by the time we arrived in Weesen they had blocked off the road to Betlis to automobile traffic because the parking in Betlis was completely full. In fact, most of the parking in Weesen was also full, and we had to park near the train station to find a legal spot. So we started in Weesen, hiked to Betlis and picnicked there, headed up to the waterfall and back. Total hiking time was probably about 4 hours. So, check the ferry schedule and if you are trying to get to Betlis by car, go VERY early.
Thanks for the detailed report! Yes, I’m hearing from so many people how crowded Walensee is right now. It’s funny because we’ve been there many times and have always been practically alone. The Covid situation is certainly affecting this area. I’m glad you were still able to enjoy the day. I agree, go very very early if you plan to drive to Betlis. I might also save this one for after the gondolas open so people can spread out a bit.
I’m a pensioner (73) so Insurance costs restrict visits to Switzerland now, so following your walks with the amazing countryside and your superb photos of off the tourist trail beat help bring Switzerland to me thank you so much
Brian
Glad you are enjoying it! Thanks for the kind comment.
Your blog is just amazing !! Thank you so much for sharing all the trails with advices, picture and even videos ! Thanks to you, I already discovered 3 amazing hikes with my 21 months daughter : ) Just a comment on this specific one : I was there today (May 26, 2018) with the intention to go from Quinten to Weesen but the trail is closed and will be closed for at least one month not far from Quinten because of rock slides. We ended up going back to Betlis and went to the waterfall from there. Much shorter but still very nice and the waterfall was totally worth it. We will go back there to do some windsurf next time as we discovered also it was a good spot for this. Thanks again for all the tips !
Thanks for the nice comment and the helpful info! I just did that hike a few weeks ago, too bad about the rock slide. I’ll add a note in my post. Yes, it’s a popular spot for windsurfing when the wind is up. I’d also recommend it for swimming and paddleboarding when it’s calm. Enjoy!