Switzerland Mountain Biking 2012 edition - Jeizinen in the Sonnenberg - Part 4 of 4
|| Grindelwald/Jungfrau || Aletsch Arena - Alpine Rides|| Aletsch Arena - Fiesch & Bellwald downhills || Jeizinen in the Sonnenberg || Switzerland - General Tips and Tricks (must read for DIY'ers or if you want to know more about the country)
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Underi Fäsilalpu - best name ever!
Our third area to ride in Switzerland was further east in Wallis, going towards Valais where Gruezi is replaced with Bonjour. In other words we’re heading to the French side of this small but so big country.
We took the train from Fiesch and transfered in Visp about 20 kms away for a regional train to Gampel-Steg; a town of about 1400 people. From Gampel's train station we walked 20 minutes into Gampel to take the Luftseilbahn Gampel-Jeizinen up to Jeizinen, a small satellite community of about 100 people above Gampel.
You can also drive up to Jeizinen, they have the Luftseilbahn as an alternative and apparently a better way to travel in the winter! If anyone has wondered "where are the Swiss going to put more gondolas?" this one really makes you scratch your head; its a major undertaking for relatively small populations and we'd hazard the guess that its almost certainly some economic stimulus package money to build it and regional grants to keep it going. Later we found that there is a small ski area higher above Jeizinen's 1600m at Underi Fäsilalpu but it is south - facing so has a short season.
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![Lower trails near Jeizinen]()
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Jeizinen and the Gampel - Steg area typified something we'd heard about Switzerland; that it's a small house but with many rooms. And every room is different. This area (some called it the Sonnenberger, some called it Pfyn-Finges, some called it just Gampel) seems to be more united by weather than anything. It's basically marketed as one of the sunniest and driest parts of Switzerland. But it's just the north side of the valley (which faces south) that's marketed this way.
This segues into a stream of consciousness for us as mountain biking tourists who've travelled a long way to ride. The tourism marketing is parochial and each tourism area so small. With the ease of Swiss public transit it's easy to cross boundaries of multiple tourism areas. Just for example we were on the north side of a valley with south facing slopes. On the other side of valley is Augstbordregion with two tourists boards (Burchen - Unterbach Tourismus, Eischoll Tourismus) and two gondolas covering the area from directly across Gampel towards the N-S valley that runs from Visp towards Zermatt. Across the valley to the West is Turtmann - Ergisch (Turtmanntall Tourismus). East of Gampel - Steg is the Simplon area with Simplon Tourismus. West is Leukerbad and Crans Montana Tourismus
Our point is that tourists whether bikers/hikers don't care about the reasons for the various tourist bureaus. People on bikes in particular want to explore and see the best of an area. At least for biking there is no one single tourism website or publication that covers off all these areas as a unified whole. Instead you have to pull together bits of information from here and there and try to piece together unified biking routes. What it comes down to is that we left the region around Jeizinen feeling like we had seen something the glimmers of something special but on the other hand (and admittedly its also our fault) missed a lot.
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![General map]()
![View from Pension Park in the morning]()
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We had absolutely zero complaints about where we stayed; the Pension Park Accommodations where we were treated very well by Monika and Willi. The place was super quiet and quaint. Willi was an awesome cook, we were fed very well.
We rode here over two days. As alluded to after talking to other people and doing more research we learned that there is a lot more riding in this area that we missed. We have the Wanderkarte/hiking maps and will have to study it before we go back. We have ourselves to blame in large part for not making the best use of time. Usually we do a lot more research on an area before we go but on this leg of our trip we relied on locally provided guides. Accordingly we should have taken our own advice in the long article we wrote generally and done our homework.
Our first day in particular was about missed opportunities. There were some language barriers and although our local guide Andreas tried hard we later learned that he is a Marathon XC racer as we rode up sweet single track and down some paved roads. This was a very Marathon (ie to us boring) route! To summarize, we rode up singletrack trails traversing west from Jeizinen to Nivenalp climbing all the way gently. Then we rode road to Bachalp, up more singletrack towards Oberu and then finally more gently uphill traversing singletrack to the Rinderhutte alp restaurant at the top of the perfectly good Torrentbahn gondola (free for bikes) which we did not take! Then we rode down a ski-hill gravel road and then started traversing and climbing back past Tscharmilonga and finally ending up at Jeizinen.
Lee then took the Jeizinen downhill which parallels the Jeizinen gondola down to Gampel and described it as "fast but eroded". Evidently it is popular with the DH shuttle crowd but it is a trail without much art or challenge
________________________________________________________________________________________________
![Food of Pension Park]()
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Time is precious when you have flown a good part of the way around the world to bike and there's no other way to characterize the first day as anything but a complete waste of time. What we did learn is that the lower singletrack is quite good but the direction in which you ride it is very particular so we spent the night looking at maps to make sure that the next day we had useable information and could come up with a route that would give visitors to the area at least one good loop and the correct direction to do it.
We also agreed that the views of the high traverse were worthy of another chance but that we would stick to our mandate of using the Swiss network of public transit and gondola infrastructure to take the sting out of climbs.
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![Andi sporting the Swiss colours]()
![Heading the wrong way - Torrent high traverse trail from Rinderhutte to Jeizinen. Climbing from Bachalp and nearing Oberu]()
![Heading the wrong way - Torrent high traverse trail from Rinderhutte to Jeizinen. In the valley between Oberu and Leuk]()
![Heading the wrong way - Torrent high traverse trail from Jeizinen to Rinderhutte]()
![Heading the wrong way - Torrent high traverse trail from Rinderhutte to Jeizinen]()
![Ice cream at the Rinderhutte is highly recommended]()
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On our second day, we wanted to ride the higher Torrent traverse but this time using the network of public transit and gondolas that Switzerland offers and staying away from downhilling on gravel and paved roads as much as possible. To re-emphasize, the route map at the end of this story shows the second day's ride and the correct way to ride the trails if you are looking to emphasize downhill over uphill.
Our route involved a gradual descending W traverse from Jeizinen - Engersch - Erschmatt - Leuk Stadt (missed some singletrack towards Bratsch that is supposed to be good and descends all the way to Gampel). There are other single track trails further east that you can find off the hiking maps. As mentioned this area also tends to be more dry, as its south facing and in a bit of a dry belt. The fact that its dry and that low singletracks are good and plentiful draws many riders here early in the year. We were also told that the area is full of the fall Larch reds and yellows in late autumn making for spectacular scenery.
After getting to Leuk we then took the bus up to Leukerbad climbing about 600m and travelling approx 12km. Leukerbad is a cool resort-ish town. We did a side detour up the Gemmi gondola and rode the Daubersee. It's scenic but the trails are doubletrack and of average quality. We then had to take the gondola back down as riding bikes down the Gemmi trail is verboten. From Leukerbad we took the Torrent gondola from Leukerbad to the Rinderhutte and then basically reversed the single track we had done on day 1 back down to Jeizinen.
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![Jeizinen trail right below the gondola. Give this a miss]()
![The old town of Leuk]()
![The hiking trail from the top of the tramp. Velo is VERBOTEN but the trail is ridable just far if you fall off.]()
![Daubersee on top of the Gemmi Gondola out of Leukerbad]()
![Sharon on the high traverse Torrent trail from Rinderhutte to Jeizinen]()
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Gampel-Jenzinen
Here are our suggestions for some rides in the area.
Later research showed that we had missed "Plaine Morte" a classic Wallis descent from an alpine plateau above Crans Montana which drops to Leukerbad This video from Tom Malecha features this Wallis gem as well as "Le Bresillien" about 40kms away from Jeizinen near Sion (In Swiss terms that's a long long way away).
As another suggestion, Dave at Swiss Alpine Adventure knows the trails and the routes around here and has run trips from the Crans Montana area traversing all the way to trails due East even of Gampel almost all the way to Visp. His suggestions include the Lotschberg Sudrampe or the Belalp loop from the Brig area (both are good early season rides but are crowded with hikers in high season so be warned).
Also, look in ride.ch for route descriptions of "Plaine Morte". Brazillian/Le Bresillien described here
If anyone knows of other guiding outfits particular to the area please chime in on the comments as it will help readers!
(Click on the links to bring the maps up full-page. You can download GPS also if you want to replicate the loops)
Our Day 2 ride - described in this story
Rode from Jeizinen to Leuk, took the bus up to Leukerbad, did a side detour up the Gemmi gondola - you can give it a miss if you don't want to see some high alpine with doubletrack trails. We then took the Torrent gondola from Leukerbad to the Rinderhutte, and rode the single track we climbed on day 1 back down to Jeizinen.
Statistics:
59 km ( day 2 ride, day 1 was similar but more road)
Duration: 7 hours, 39 minutes, 34 seconds
Vertical up: 3002.2 m
Vertical down: 2989.2 m
Average Speed: 7.7 km/h
________________________________________________________________________________________________
As always thanks to Tourism Switzerland (particularly Ursula and Mariel who did a fantastic job making sure we saw the highlights)
• Thanks also to Franziska Amstudt at Wallis Tourism for the detailed itinerary
• Tip of the hat to Killian of Gampel Steg Tourism for arranging all the ground support
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Underi Fäsilalpu - best name ever!
Our third area to ride in Switzerland was further east in Wallis, going towards Valais where Gruezi is replaced with Bonjour. In other words we’re heading to the French side of this small but so big country.
We took the train from Fiesch and transfered in Visp about 20 kms away for a regional train to Gampel-Steg; a town of about 1400 people. From Gampel's train station we walked 20 minutes into Gampel to take the Luftseilbahn Gampel-Jeizinen up to Jeizinen, a small satellite community of about 100 people above Gampel.
You can also drive up to Jeizinen, they have the Luftseilbahn as an alternative and apparently a better way to travel in the winter! If anyone has wondered "where are the Swiss going to put more gondolas?" this one really makes you scratch your head; its a major undertaking for relatively small populations and we'd hazard the guess that its almost certainly some economic stimulus package money to build it and regional grants to keep it going. Later we found that there is a small ski area higher above Jeizinen's 1600m at Underi Fäsilalpu but it is south - facing so has a short season.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Some Jeizinen single track
Jeizinen in the Sonnerberger - Wallis - Sept 10, 11. 2012 from Lee Lau on Vimeo.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Jeizinen and the Gampel - Steg area typified something we'd heard about Switzerland; that it's a small house but with many rooms. And every room is different. This area (some called it the Sonnenberger, some called it Pfyn-Finges, some called it just Gampel) seems to be more united by weather than anything. It's basically marketed as one of the sunniest and driest parts of Switzerland. But it's just the north side of the valley (which faces south) that's marketed this way.
This segues into a stream of consciousness for us as mountain biking tourists who've travelled a long way to ride. The tourism marketing is parochial and each tourism area so small. With the ease of Swiss public transit it's easy to cross boundaries of multiple tourism areas. Just for example we were on the north side of a valley with south facing slopes. On the other side of valley is Augstbordregion with two tourists boards (Burchen - Unterbach Tourismus, Eischoll Tourismus) and two gondolas covering the area from directly across Gampel towards the N-S valley that runs from Visp towards Zermatt. Across the valley to the West is Turtmann - Ergisch (Turtmanntall Tourismus). East of Gampel - Steg is the Simplon area with Simplon Tourismus. West is Leukerbad and Crans Montana Tourismus
Our point is that tourists whether bikers/hikers don't care about the reasons for the various tourist bureaus. People on bikes in particular want to explore and see the best of an area. At least for biking there is no one single tourism website or publication that covers off all these areas as a unified whole. Instead you have to pull together bits of information from here and there and try to piece together unified biking routes. What it comes down to is that we left the region around Jeizinen feeling like we had seen something the glimmers of something special but on the other hand (and admittedly its also our fault) missed a lot.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
General map of the area. Covering this whole area is outside the scope of this article and our 2 days in the region. It will need a full 2 weeks to scratch the surface in this part of the Wallis. Click on the picture and pick the large setting to see it better
View from our Pension Park room looking West down valley to Sierre
________________________________________________________________________________________________
We had absolutely zero complaints about where we stayed; the Pension Park Accommodations where we were treated very well by Monika and Willi. The place was super quiet and quaint. Willi was an awesome cook, we were fed very well.
We rode here over two days. As alluded to after talking to other people and doing more research we learned that there is a lot more riding in this area that we missed. We have the Wanderkarte/hiking maps and will have to study it before we go back. We have ourselves to blame in large part for not making the best use of time. Usually we do a lot more research on an area before we go but on this leg of our trip we relied on locally provided guides. Accordingly we should have taken our own advice in the long article we wrote generally and done our homework.
Our first day in particular was about missed opportunities. There were some language barriers and although our local guide Andreas tried hard we later learned that he is a Marathon XC racer as we rode up sweet single track and down some paved roads. This was a very Marathon (ie to us boring) route! To summarize, we rode up singletrack trails traversing west from Jeizinen to Nivenalp climbing all the way gently. Then we rode road to Bachalp, up more singletrack towards Oberu and then finally more gently uphill traversing singletrack to the Rinderhutte alp restaurant at the top of the perfectly good Torrentbahn gondola (free for bikes) which we did not take! Then we rode down a ski-hill gravel road and then started traversing and climbing back past Tscharmilonga and finally ending up at Jeizinen.
Lee then took the Jeizinen downhill which parallels the Jeizinen gondola down to Gampel and described it as "fast but eroded". Evidently it is popular with the DH shuttle crowd but it is a trail without much art or challenge
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Food of Pension Park - Willi the cook is a professional cook from Zurich and it shows in the care he took to feed us
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Time is precious when you have flown a good part of the way around the world to bike and there's no other way to characterize the first day as anything but a complete waste of time. What we did learn is that the lower singletrack is quite good but the direction in which you ride it is very particular so we spent the night looking at maps to make sure that the next day we had useable information and could come up with a route that would give visitors to the area at least one good loop and the correct direction to do it.
We also agreed that the views of the high traverse were worthy of another chance but that we would stick to our mandate of using the Swiss network of public transit and gondola infrastructure to take the sting out of climbs.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Our guide Andreas Prumatt
Climbing from Bachalp; riding this the reverse way as a downhill is much better in our opinion
Crossing the ridgeline dividing Oberu and Leukerbad (the foreground cliffs surround Leukerbad). See above comment on the better way to ride this
Traversing towards the Rinderhutte (the other direction is better as its a fast flowy downhill - this was our day 1 when we climbed it then descended road
Rinderhutte in the distance. On our day 1 of marathon riding we descended the road you can see on the right hand side of the picture - ugh!
Obligatory ice cream/ Glace at lunch. The Torrentbahn gondola starts at the town of Leukerbad about 800m below. You can also ride pretty good trails from Crans-Montana to Leukerbad in the morning and end up at this restaurant for lunch. We will have to come back to knock that entire loop off sometime
________________________________________________________________________________________________
On our second day, we wanted to ride the higher Torrent traverse but this time using the network of public transit and gondolas that Switzerland offers and staying away from downhilling on gravel and paved roads as much as possible. To re-emphasize, the route map at the end of this story shows the second day's ride and the correct way to ride the trails if you are looking to emphasize downhill over uphill.
Our route involved a gradual descending W traverse from Jeizinen - Engersch - Erschmatt - Leuk Stadt (missed some singletrack towards Bratsch that is supposed to be good and descends all the way to Gampel). There are other single track trails further east that you can find off the hiking maps. As mentioned this area also tends to be more dry, as its south facing and in a bit of a dry belt. The fact that its dry and that low singletracks are good and plentiful draws many riders here early in the year. We were also told that the area is full of the fall Larch reds and yellows in late autumn making for spectacular scenery.
After getting to Leuk we then took the bus up to Leukerbad climbing about 600m and travelling approx 12km. Leukerbad is a cool resort-ish town. We did a side detour up the Gemmi gondola and rode the Daubersee. It's scenic but the trails are doubletrack and of average quality. We then had to take the gondola back down as riding bikes down the Gemmi trail is verboten. From Leukerbad we took the Torrent gondola from Leukerbad to the Rinderhutte and then basically reversed the single track we had done on day 1 back down to Jeizinen.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Andi on the Jeizinen downhill. This doubletrack downhill trail was an exception to the general rule that the lower trails were pretty fun and narrow singletrack. Lee did this on day 1. It's fast but beat
The cool old town of Leuk
The hiking trail from the top of the tramp. Velo is VERBOTEN, but the trail is ridable, just far if you fall off. Lee wanted to ride it but he has no depth perception or sense of self-preservation
Daubersee on top of the Gemmi Gondola out of Leukerbad. Earns a solid meh. Better things to do.
Rode back on the Torrent Panoramaweg. The views really are great and the reverse way of Day 1's marathon route is pretty fun
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Gampel-Jenzinen
Here are our suggestions for some rides in the area.
Later research showed that we had missed "Plaine Morte" a classic Wallis descent from an alpine plateau above Crans Montana which drops to Leukerbad This video from Tom Malecha features this Wallis gem as well as "Le Bresillien" about 40kms away from Jeizinen near Sion (In Swiss terms that's a long long way away).
The Seekers. from Filme von Draussen on Vimeo.
As another suggestion, Dave at Swiss Alpine Adventure knows the trails and the routes around here and has run trips from the Crans Montana area traversing all the way to trails due East even of Gampel almost all the way to Visp. His suggestions include the Lotschberg Sudrampe or the Belalp loop from the Brig area (both are good early season rides but are crowded with hikers in high season so be warned).
Also, look in ride.ch for route descriptions of "Plaine Morte". Brazillian/Le Bresillien described here
If anyone knows of other guiding outfits particular to the area please chime in on the comments as it will help readers!
(Click on the links to bring the maps up full-page. You can download GPS also if you want to replicate the loops)
Our Day 2 ride - described in this story
Rode from Jeizinen to Leuk, took the bus up to Leukerbad, did a side detour up the Gemmi gondola - you can give it a miss if you don't want to see some high alpine with doubletrack trails. We then took the Torrent gondola from Leukerbad to the Rinderhutte, and rode the single track we climbed on day 1 back down to Jeizinen.
Statistics:
59 km ( day 2 ride, day 1 was similar but more road)
Duration: 7 hours, 39 minutes, 34 seconds
Vertical up: 3002.2 m
Vertical down: 2989.2 m
Average Speed: 7.7 km/h
Switzerland - Gampel Jeizinen
________________________________________________________________________________________________
As always thanks to Tourism Switzerland (particularly Ursula and Mariel who did a fantastic job making sure we saw the highlights)
• Thanks also to Franziska Amstudt at Wallis Tourism for the detailed itinerary
• Tip of the hat to Killian of Gampel Steg Tourism for arranging all the ground support
Author Info:
Member since Oct 18, 2009
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- Vercorin > Chandolin
- Plaine Morte
- Le Bresilien
Enjoy:
a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tettinx/sets/72157631888269906/">www.flickr.com/photos/tettinx/sets/72157631888269906//a>br>
Can't wait to get back.
Interesting to see again that there is a lot of difference in the level of guiding and understanding the customers' wishes.
Although we don't have Switzerland listed in the destinations yet, at a href="http://www.ridewiththelocals.com">www.ridewiththelocals.com/a> we work with local guides only, who are capable of pleasing both the XC lycra crowd as well as the more Enduro / DH style of riding.
Lee, if you plan another Euro Trip for 2013, get in touch!
Checks our programm:http://www.besttrails.ch/en/trip/valais-enduroall-mountain
and video!http://vimeo.com/83843763
If anyone out there is interested...we run an amazing 9-day enduro trip in the Valais called Cloudraker ridebig.com/trip_switzerland_cloudraker.php and also a DH version, Alpenrock ridebig.com/trip_switzerland_alpenrock.php.
Happy trails.
Looks 'interesting'..
vimeo.com/54892632