Saas-Grund · Hohsaas

Saas-Grund sits at 1,559 metres in the Saastal and, unlike neighbouring Saas-Fee, is reachable by car right up to the valley station, a short half hour's drive via Visp and Stalden. The cable car climbs via the Kreuzboden mid-station at 2,400 metres on up to Hohsaas at just over 3,100 metres, one of the highest lift points in the valley.

Depending on the count, the ski area has between twenty-six and thirty-four kilometres of piste with eight lifts, from 1,559 metres up to the mountain station, with a season that typically runs from around 20 December to early April. Red runs dominate. The eleven-kilometre toboggan run from Kreuzboden to Saas-Grund is one of the longest in the region; a day pass costs CHF 45 for adults, sledge hire CHF 10. At the Ziebel village lift you can go night sledging in the evening for CHF 5 a ride. Along the Vispa there are 23 kilometres of cross-country trails.

What makes Hohsaas unique is the winter glacier walk: from the mountain station you cross the Triftgletsjer with a guide, taking around two and a half hours, every Wednesday at half past one or on request. It's an experience most ski areas simply don't offer.

In summer the Weg der 18 Viertausender starts at Hohsaas, the trail back down to the valley along which you can point out eighteen four-thousand-metre peaks. From the same spot, mountaineers set off on the roughly four-hour climb to the summit of the Weissmies, just over 4,000 metres, across a crevassed glacier for which a guide is strongly recommended. The Jägihorn via ferrata has had its own suspension bridge since 2016. Kreuzboden has a twelve-hundred-metre discovery trail with water games along the Kreuzbodensee, and from there it's an hour's walk to the Weissmieshütte at 2,726 metres, a notably child-friendly mountain hut. Mountain bikers ride the flow trail from Kreuzboden to Trift.