Trümmelbach Falls — waterfall
JoachimKohler-HB · CC BY-SA 4.0

Trümmelbach Falls

Trümmelbachfälle

  • Elevation1,147 m
  • 1 min read
  • 46.569° N 7.915° E

Interesting facts

  • The uppermost falls lie so deep inside the narrow, twisting cleft that daylight never reaches them, which is why they are called subterranean waterfalls.
  • The cleft cut by the stream is extremely narrow and barely widens towards the top, so the falls are hidden from the valley floor.
  • Besides water, the Trümmelbach carries roughly 20,000 tonnes of rock debris out of the mountain every year.
  • Average flow is about 3 cubic metres per second, but at the peak of the melt it can rise to several times that.
  • The falls lie within the Jungfrau-Aletsch World Heritage area.
  • One of the chutes is nicknamed the Corkscrew for the spiral the water has drilled into the rock.
  • In 1922 the Swiss poster artist Emil Cardinaux designed an advertising poster for the falls.

Why it is worth it

Trümmelbach Falls are a waterfall hidden inside a mountain. In the Lauterbrunnen Valley of the Bernese Oberland, the Trümmelbach stream has carved a twisting gorge through the rock, and instead of plunging freely over a cliff it thunders down a chain of ten falls enclosed within the mountain itself, descending about 140 metres in all. Visitors follow tunnels, galleries and stairways about 600 metres long, close enough to feel the spray and the roar of the water in the rock.

The water is meltwater from the glaciers on the flanks of the Eiger, the Mönch and the Jungfrau. The catchment covers about 24 km², roughly half of it under snow and ice, and at the peak of the melt in late spring and early summer the stream carries up to 20,000 litres per second, together with large quantities of rock debris ground off by the glaciers. The water is at its most turbid in spring; later in the year, as the flow drops, it often runs clearer.

Walkways and bridges first made the falls accessible in 1877. In 1913 a tunnel lift was opened to carry visitors up through the rock: it runs 98 metres on a steep incline, rising 71 metres from the entrance at 819 metres, and was replaced in 1964 and again in 1982–83. The falls are listed in Switzerland's Federal Inventory of Natural Monuments.

Getting there

The falls lie in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, between the village of Lauterbrunnen and Stechelberg at the head of the valley; Lauterbrunnen is linked by rail to Interlaken. Among the larger towns, Thun is about 30 km away in a straight line. The nearest airport is Bern Airport (BRN), about 50 km away in a straight line.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Bern 13The Most Beautiful Places in Switzerland 44The Most Beautiful Water Wonders in Switzerland 5The Most Beautiful Waterfalls 90The Most Beautiful Water Wonders 429

From the encyclopaedia

Trümmelbach Falls are a series of ten waterfalls within a mountain in the Lauterbrunnen Valley of the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland. The stream is fed by meltwater from glaciers on the flanks of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau and descends about 140 metres through the mountain. The waterfalls have been accessible to visitors since the late 19th century via tunnels, galleries and stairways and are listed in Switzerland’s Federal Inventory of Natural Monuments.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

46.56907, 7.91498per Wikidata