Saas-Fee

Saas-Fee sits at 1,800 m at the head of the Saas valley, one valley east of Zermatt, in a bowl closed by thirteen peaks over 4,000 m — the largest concentration of them around any village in the Alps. The Fee glacier comes down almost to the houses.

It is car-free: you leave the car in a large park at the entrance and walk or take an electric cart. The village keeps its old quarter of dark timber granaries on stone stilts, and it is smaller and more intact than Zermatt.

History

Until the 14th century the Saas valley, in the canton of Valais, had a single settlement, called Saas. Four villages grew out of it, and Saas-Fee — sometimes called the Pearl of the Alps — is the best known of the four.

Metro Alpin

The mountain railway is unusual. Rather than a cable car, the last stage to Mittelallalin at 3,500 m is an underground funicular bored through the rock — the highest such railway in the world.

At the top is a revolving restaurant and, cut into the glacier beneath it, the Ice Pavilion: the largest ice grotto in the world, several thousand cubic metres of chambers and sculpture at a constant few degrees below zero, 15 m down inside the ice.

Summer skiing

Saas-Fee is one of the two places in Switzerland with reliable summer skiing — the Fee glacier is high enough and flat enough that national teams train here in July and August, and it is open to the public in the mornings.

That also means the village has a long season: skiing from roughly July to May, with a short break in June.

Sights

A few fixed attractions sit below the glacier as well as on it.

The Alpine Gorge is a via ferrata — a fixed-rope route — along the river gorge between Saas-Fee and Saas-Grund, following the steep rock walls entirely by rope bridge and cable traverse. It can only be done with a mountain guide.

The Adventure Park is a high-rope course through the trees, with sections of varying difficulty: swings on steel cables, zip-lines from tree to tree, and rope bridges, with the glacier as a backdrop.

Feeblitz is a permanent toboggan run with a 55-degree drop at the top, open most of the year; in the evening the track is lit for night descents.

Walking

The classic is the Höhenweg balcony paths along the valley sides, level and long, looking across at the glaciers.

The Britanniahütte and the Hohsaas routes get you up among the ice with a lift for most of the ascent, and the marmot trail above the village is aimed at families and delivers actual marmots.

Down the valley, Saas-Grund, Saas-Almagell and Saas-Balen are cheaper places to stay with the same mountains, and the last of these has a rare round church.

The valley villages

Saas-Grund, in the middle of the valley, is the usual starting point for high-altitude hikes. Saas-Almagell’s main feature is the Mattmark dam. Saas-Balen’s round church is built in a late-Baroque style and is a monument of national significance; the Fell Brook stream runs through the middle of the village.

Trails and biking

The valley’s hiking network runs to around 350 km of paths, including routes suitable for families. The same valley carries a 70 km mountain-bike route and a shorter, roughly 5 km, route for kick-scooters. The marmots on the family trail live around the middle station of the Spielboden cable car, above the village.

Ski area

Saas-Fee’s own ski area has 22 lifts and around 100 km of groomed pistes, and forms the core of a wider skiing region that also takes in the Kreuzboden-Hochsaas area above Saas-Grund; across the whole valley there is more than 150 km of pistes for skiing and snowboarding. Saas-Grund and Saas-Almagell each have their own ski areas too.

Non-skiers get around 20 km of winter walking paths and an 8 km cross-country loop, open from around the middle of December to the end of March depending on conditions.

Sledging

Saas-Fee also has toboggan runs down the mountain, separate from the summer Feeblitz track. One of the longest, from Kreuzboden down to Saas-Grund, is about 11 km; a shorter run above Saas-Fee itself, at Hannig, is about 6 km, and Saas-Almagell’s Furggstalden run is about 3 km. Some runs also open for night sledging.

Festivals

Saas-Fee holds an Ice Climbing World Cup in January, when climbers work a 30 m ice wall built inside a multi-storey car park in the village, and an International Alpine Music Festival in July, a gathering of alpine folk musicians.

Getting there

• By train and bus — the railway reaches Visp (Zurich about two and a quarter hours, Geneva about two and a half), then a post bus climbs the valley in about an hour. Buses are frequent and coordinated with the trains.
• By car — as far as the car park at the village entrance, and no further.

Saas-Fee or Zermatt?

They are an hour apart and quite different.

Zermatt has the Matterhorn, more skiing, more people, more money and the Gornergrat.

Saas-Fee is smaller, quieter, cheaper, more enclosed by ice, and it has the summer skiing and the ice pavilion. There is no single famous mountain, but there are thirteen big ones in a circle.

If you want the icon, Zermatt. If you want the glacier and fewer people, here.

When to go

July to September for walking, December to April for skiing, and July and August for the summer glacier. The village works nearly all year, which is rare.