Lauchernalp · Lötschental

The Lötschental is the side valley that stayed off the map for a long time, and you can still feel it. From Ried-Brig it's about a three-quarter-hour drive via Gampel and Goppenstein. The villages of Ferden, Kippel, Wiler and Blatten have preserved their traditional timber architecture, and from Wiler a hundred-person cable car takes you up to the Lauchernalp.

By its own count the ski area has forty kilometres of piste, independent counts put it at 37.5, between 1,403 and 3,100 metres, with a cable car, a gondola, two chairlifts, a ski lift and two magic carpets for children. Its highest point is the Hockenhorngrat, which keeps the area snow-sure late into the season. Four of the twelve pistes are black: this is not an area aimed solely at beginners. The toboggan run from the Lauchernalp to Wiler measures 5.3 kilometres with 525 metres of descent and takes around twenty minutes. Cross-country trails run through Kippel and between Kippel and Wiler, and there are eight winter walking routes.

What truly sets the Lötschental apart are the Tschäggättä. Between Candlemas in early February and the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, figures in roughly carved wooden masks, fur pelts and cowbells roam through the villages. The custom exists nowhere else in Switzerland and was never invented for tourists, it simply never stopped.

Summer here is for walkers. The Lötschentaler Höhenweg runs 9.4 kilometres from the Lauchernalp to the Fafleralp, with views over the UNESCO Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn area; the longer variant to Jeizinen measures 17.2 kilometres. Trail runners take the loop from Kippel via the Bietschhornhütte, almost sixteen kilometres with 1,254 metres of climbing. Mountain bikers have the short Loichitrail and the 13.6-kilometre Bietschhorn Trail. In Kippel, the Lötschentaler Museum shows the work of painter Albert Nyfeler; admission CHF 6, open daily except Monday in summer. Village tours taking in the church, museum and valley legends can be booked on request.