The Lift to Waterfalls That Run in the Dark
In Switzerland's Lauterbrunnen valley, a tunnel lift climbs through a mountain to ten waterfalls fed by glacier meltwater.
Inside the mountain
Glacier ice on the peaks above the valley. The Trümmelbach starts as meltwater from ice like this.
Conditions: overcast, wet rock, a fine spray hanging in the air. We were at the Trümmelbach Falls in Switzerland's Lauterbrunnen valley, where a stream drops through ten waterfalls inside a mountain and a lift runs 98 m through a tunnel to reach the upper ones. The bus had brought us out from the station in the village of Lauterbrunnen.
My sister and I got into the lift with a handful of other visitors. The doors closed, the daylight went, and the stream came up through the walls as a low roar before we had gone far. Anders, the man beside me, tilted his head and asked nobody in particular, "That's all water?"
At the top we stepped out into a gallery where the air was cold and the rock shone wet, and within a minute my sleeves were soaked. Tunnels, galleries and stairways lead along the falls, and the stream drops roughly 140 metres inside the mountain. Most of the time the water was a noise, then a pale flash where the light caught it. Forecast for sleeves: wet, no improvement expected.
The gorge was too dark and too wet for my phone, so the picture I have is of glacier ice up on the peaks instead, which is what the water starts as. Meltwater from glaciers on the flanks of three Alpine peaks, the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, feeds the stream. In spring and early summer the flow can reach about 20 cubic metres per second, while by autumn it is lower and the water usually clearer. We went in early autumn and the roar was still enough to end the conversation. Outlook: daylight, and a bus back to the station.
The valley floor
Conditions: overcast, flat grey light, the cliff streaked dark. Back in the village we walked out to the Staubbach, the highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland. It drops 297 m from a hanging valley, a side valley that ends partway up the main wall.
Its German name, Staubbachfall, means "dust creek fall", and from the meadow you can see why: the white thread thins out partway down the rock, and the stream is generally almost lost in spray before it reaches the valley floor.
The Staubbach was thin in early autumn, which is normal, because its flow is highest after rain and early in the season, when melting snow feeds it. Goethe, the German poet, came in 1779, and the visit inspired a poem, "Song of the Spirits over the Waters".
Locally, the name Lauterbrunnen is explained as "many springs", and the valley calls itself the valley of 71 waterfalls. Two of them were in view from the meadow: the Staubbach, and a much thinner streak further along the same wall. My sister bought nothing and photographed everything.
The Staubbach from the meadow below, a white thread on a very large wall.
At 297 m, the Staubbach reaches the valley floor mostly as spray.
The rail line
Flat overcast again, the light the same grey as the cliff. On the walk back to the station a train crossed the bridge below the cliff, and once there were carriages below it for scale, the Staubbach finally looked its height.
forecaster's notes
Trümmelbach is generally open daily from early April to November, 9:00 to 17:00, and 8:30 to 18:00 in July and August; opening dates depend on the weather.
The falls are 3 km from Lauterbrunnen, by bus from the station.
Children under four and dogs are not admitted, for safety reasons.
At the station we waited for the train down to Interlaken, the town where we were staying. Tolkien hiked from Interlaken to this valley in 1911, and it later inspired his sketches of Rivendell, the elves' refuge in The Lord of the Rings. We did it the lazy way and in reverse. Our train came, and for a minute or so the Staubbach stayed in the window as a pale seam until a bend took it. ■
