Kröntenhütte SAC

August 14, 2021 by Pat and Bruno  ‐  3 min read

Difficulty T2
⇄ Distance 9.4 km
↑ Up 1060 m
↓ Down 1060 m
Notable Locations Erstfeldertal, Kröntenhütte SAC
Public Transit Access? No1

Quick Summary

  • A very warm hike to the Kröntenhütte SAC near the city of Erstfeld.
  • Special permit required to drive up the Erstfeldertal was required; a day permit cost about 20.- and could be purchased at the Kiosk outside of the Migros on Gotthardstrasse
  • We decided to hike up on the southern side of the valley instead of the northern side. Most people seemed to hike up along the river on the north side so we had the trail mostly to ourselves if you hike up on the southern side
  • As the thick green foliage suggests, this valley is quite temperate. We decided to go early in the morning because it can get extremely hot here later in the day during the summer months
  • We thoroughly enjoyed making a stop at the Obersee near the Kröntenhütte
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Ascent to the Kröntenhütte SAC

The first part of the ascent up to the Kröntenhütte SAC. This picture is taken from the south-side of the valley looking east towards Erstfeld.

Despite the foliage being extremely thick, there are frequent clearings that gave us a nice panorama of the valley.

Once we started getting a little higher up, the trees began to clear and we had more consistent views of the surrounding mountains.

Kröntenhütte and the Obersee

A first view of the Kröntenhütte. The Krönten is one of the peaks which is just out of view on the right-hand-side of the image. The fuorcla (saddle) on the left side of the image is the Steinchälenfurggli which has an alpine path (marked white-blue-white) that goes over to the next valley to the Leutschahhütte SAC.

At the hut itself.

The Obersee is about a 10-15 minute walk from the Kröntenhütte. Here we're looking west towards the Oberseemänndli.

Lots of sheep hanging out at the Obersee.

Return Along the Alpbach

Returning back towards the Kröntenhütte, we continued down towards the Fulensee. Here we are looking back towards the waterfalls which are coming down from the Obersee.

Another view of the waterfalls coming down from the Obersee. Here we can see the Kröntenhütte to the left of the falls.

The only (slightly) exposed part of the hike. This short passage is immediately after the Fulensee and took us down to the Alpbach river. While the path here is quite wide and most of the descent is secured by chains, I could imagine this being a little more sketchy when wet.

A view down the Erstfeldertal. The Alpbach is in the gully just to the left side of the image.

Some of the rather turbulent falls along the Alpbach. Despite being named a ''bach'' (which in German means stream or creek), I think describing it as a river is a little more fitting.

Once again getting back below the tree line. The water is glacial runoff and is ice cold as a result. Definitely don't want to fall in here...

The nice relaxing path along the Alpbach.

Looking back up the Erstfeldertal from where we hiked down. This final stretch of the hike is down a gravel road to get back to where we parked the car.

  1. There is an alp taxi that we could have taken from Erstfeld up to Bodenberg, but this was not part of the standard SBB timetable. ↩︎

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