Lauterbrunnen Waterfalls: The Valley Floor And The Count of 72

Start with honesty, because this is a number that gets repeated more often than it gets explained. The claim that Lauterbrunnen holds 72 waterfalls is the standard figure used by the Jungfrau Region and Lauterbrunnen tourism boards themselves. It is not the result of a hydrological survey. No numbered map exists, no official list names the 72 falls one by one, and no signpost in the valley points to fall number 41. If you try to count them from the valley floor you will get a different total depending on the season, because most of them are seasonal. In snowmelt and after rain the cliff walls carry dozens of thin white streaks. In a dry late summer week many of those same streaks shrink to a damp line or disappear altogether.

The number is old, though, and it is not marketing invented last decade. The valley's name was first documented in 1240 as 'in claro fonte', and the village name itself is usually traced to 'lauter Brunnen', meaning many springs, or to 'lautere Bäche', meaning clear streams. Either way, the people who named this place a thousand years ago were describing the same thing the tourism boards describe today. Water comes off the valley walls from everywhere. The glacial rivers feeding the big falls drain the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, and the porous cliffs weep from a hundred small sources.

So treat 72 as a description of character rather than an inventory. It tells you that wherever you stand on the valley floor you will see falling water somewhere on the walls above you. It does not promise 72 destinations. Two of the falls are developed, named and visitable, and they get their own pages on this site. The rest are scenery, and scenery is exactly what they should be. Anyone selling you a list of all 72 is improvising, because no such official list exists.

Of the famous count, exactly two waterfalls have names you will find on signs, paths built for visitors and, in one case, a ticket window. Everything else in the valley is backdrop. These two are covered in depth on their own pages, so the summaries below only set the scene and tell you which page to read next.

Staubbach Falls, Free, In The Village

You do not have to go anywhere to see the first of the two. Staubbach Falls pours 297 metres down the cliff directly behind Lauterbrunnen village, and Jungfrau Region Tourism describes it as the highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland. Viewing it from the valley floor costs nothing and needs no planning, it is simply there, above the church and the rooftops.

A paved path leads from the village street directly to the base, with no gate and no fee at any point. Conditions and access are described in full in our Staubbach Falls guide. For the purposes of this page, note only that it is the named exception that proves the rule.

The other 70-odd falls have no path, no name on a sign and no entrance.

Trümmelbach Falls, Paid, Up The Valley

The second named attraction is different in every way. The Trümmelbach Falls are ten glacial falls hidden inside the mountain itself, draining a catchment of 24 square kilometres on the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, and you reach them through tunnels and lifts. They sit about 3 km up the valley from Lauterbrunnen station, and they charge US$21.90 (CHF 18) for an adult and US$9.72 (CHF 8) for a child aged 6 to 15.

They close completely from November to the beginning of April, when the water drops to a trickle under ice. Children under 4 and dogs are not admitted. Opening hours, the postbus connection and what the visit feels like are covered in our Trümmelbach Falls guide.

If you only pay for one waterfall thing in this valley, this is the one with something behind the paywall.

Here is the part most visitors actually do, and the part this page can describe honestly. Between Lauterbrunnen village and Stechelberg at the far end of the valley there is a flat valley floor, threaded by a quiet road and paths, and it is free to walk at all times of day and all times of year. There is no ticket office, no opening hour and no gate. You step out of the station, Lauterbrunnen train station sits right in the village, and you walk up the valley with the cliff walls on both sides.

Now the honest caveat. No official distance or walking time is published for the full village-to-Stechelberg walk. We will not invent one. The only official figure on record is that the Trümmelbach Falls turnoff lies about 3 km from the station, which gives you a fixed checkpoint early in the walk. Beyond that, how long the full stretch takes you depends on your pace, how many times you stop to look up, and whether you carry on past Stechelberg. Our own rough planning estimate, clearly labelled as ours and not an official figure, is 1 to 2 hours one way. Treat it as an order of magnitude, nothing more.

The surface is flat the whole way, which makes it one of the easiest walks in the area and suitable for almost anyone. If two hours on foot sounds like too much, or you want the whole valley covered with a guide, the e-bike option solves it. The Interlaken: 72 Waterfalls Valley & Lauterbrunnen E-Bike Tour rides the length of the valley floor on electric bikes, stops at both named falls and folds the Trümmelbach entry fee into the price. A postbus also runs up the valley if you want to walk one way and ride back.

The unnamed falls deserve a proper description, because they are most of the 72. They have no names you can look up, no paths leading to them and no viewpoints built for them. They are thin seasonal streams that leap off the valley walls hundreds of metres above you, lose their shape in the wind and land as mist or as a faint trace on the rock. Some carry water year-round, most do not. Snowmelt in spring and early summer is when the walls are at their busiest, which is worth factoring into when you come, as our best time to visit page explains.

The walk's far end gives the valley a second act. Stechelberg is a small village at the base of the Schwarzmönch, and it is where most people turn around. You do not have to. From Stechelberg the route continues toward the Oberhornsee, a mountain lake, through woodland and then alpine terrain, with views of the north faces of the Grosshorn and Mittaghorn. This upper section climbs out of the flat valley floor and needs more planning than the walk described above, so read the hiking page before committing.

There is a heavier reason to care about this ground too. The upper valley lies inside the Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch site, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. The waterfall valley you walked through for free is the front door to one of the most protected mountain landscapes in the Alps. That status does not change what you see from the path, but it explains why the walls stay wild and why the unnamed falls were never developed. Nobody is going to build a staircase to fall number 53, and the valley is better for it.

The valley floor walk is the spine of any first visit to Lauterbrunnen, and it pairs naturally with the two named falls. A straightforward day looks like this. Arrive by train, spend the first half hour at Staubbach Falls at the foot of the village since it costs nothing, then set off up the valley floor. At about 3 km you reach the Trümmelbach turnoff, which is the natural point to go in if you are paying for one attraction, or to press on if you are not. Beyond it the walls quiet down and the valley narrows toward Stechelberg, where the postbus can carry you back if your legs are done.

If you would rather not plan any of it, or you want the distance covered for you, the Interlaken: 72 Waterfalls Valley & Lauterbrunnen E-Bike Tour does the whole floor on e-bikes in a guided six-hour day with the Trümmelbach entry already paid. For a fuller plan that bolts the village, both falls and the walk together into one route, our one day in Lauterbrunnen itinerary lays it out hour by hour. And once you have seen the two named falls up close, the rest of the 72 will make sense. They were never meant to be ticked off. They are the reason the valley floor is worth walking at all.