North Face Trail, Mürren

Here is the complete list of what official sources establish about this trail, and it is short. Mürren Tourism's own hiking page, on muerren.swiss, lists the "Northface Trail" among the village's hikes, alongside the Rotstockhütte via Wasenegg loop and the Detective Trail. The site describes it with a single phrase, "the ever-changing Northface Trail". One image on that same page carries the caption "Northface Trail Mountain View Trail", which suggests an alternate or informal name. That is the whole of the official text.

Beyond the wording, the context is solid. The trail is in the immediate vicinity of Mürren, a village at 1,638 m on the east side of the Lauterbrunnen valley, which is the side facing the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau massif. Those are the peaks whose north faces are visible from Mürren's viewing terrace and from which the trail takes its name. Mürren is car-free and reached only by the Stechelberg-Gimmelwald-Mürren cableway or the Grütschalp cableway and train.

Now the gaps, stated plainly. No official page reachable in this research publishes the trail's length, its walking duration or its difficulty grade. There is no standalone description page. The trail exists as a layer on Mürren Tourism's interactive trail map, a JavaScript map rather than a text document, so its details cannot be quoted here. A dedicated village site that might once have carried such a page, mymuerren.ch, now redirects to an unrelated online-casino site and is not used anywhere on this guide. We would rather leave these blanks visible than fill them with guesses.

Two naming points matter before you search for this trail anywhere. First, Mürren Tourism spells it "Northface Trail" as one word in its listing, while walkers commonly write "North Face Trail" as two. Its own image caption adds a second label, "Mountain View Trail", so the same path may appear under either name on signposts, in guidebooks or on the interactive map. If a sign in Mürren says Mountain View Trail, that is plausibly the same route, though only local signage can confirm it.

Second, "North Face Trail" is a heavily reused name. Trails of that exact name exist in the United States, for example in Pennsylvania and in Glacier National Park, and the phrase also collides with the outdoor clothing brand. Search engines mix all of these freely. So if you arrive at this page from a generic search, check that you meant the Mürren one, the path above the Lauterbrunnen valley in Switzerland with the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau north faces across the valley. Questions about the American trails are outside what this page covers, and we will not answer them here.

Comparing the official Mürren hikes

The Rotstockhütte via Wasenegg loop is the serious half-day option. The Detective Trail is the family option. The North Face Trail sits between them in reputation but not in documentation, which is exactly the gap this page keeps flagging.

Gaps in the official record do not make the trail unwalkable. They just move the planning onto the ground. Here is a workable sequence.

Before you travel, open Mürren Tourism's interactive trail map on muerren.swiss. The Northface Trail lives on that map layer, so it may show the routing, and the map is the closest thing to an official description that exists. Pair it with our own Lauterbrunnen map for the wider valley.

On arrival in Mürren, ask. The village has an Alpine Sports Centre, which is also where Detective Trail answer sheets are handed out, and the local tourist information can print or point you to the current trail map. Signposting in the Jungfrau Region is generally good, and if the path is signed as Mountain View Trail, ask which name applies to the route you want.

Give yourself margin. Because no duration is published, start early, carry water and a layer, and turn back on schedule rather than pushing on. Mürren sits at 1,638 m and paths here run on alpine terrain, so standard precautions apply. Check the weather forecast in the morning, since cloud can close over the very views the trail exists for. Snow likely alters or blocks the route in winter, though no official source confirms the seasonal closure pattern. For more walking ideas across the valley, see our Lauterbrunnen hikes section, and for a different kind of clifftop outing nearby, the Mürren via ferrata is documented in detail.