125 Mountain
Passes.
One Long Ascent.

FEATURED PASS

Sanetsch

CH 🏔️ Valais / Valais 2'242 m HC

The Col du Sanetsch is an old foot-and-mule crossing between the Valais and the Bernese Oberland that was never turned into a through-road. From Sion the climb runs some 26 kilometres and around 1,800 metres of ascent: up through the vineyards of the Rhône valley – Valais is Switzerland's largest wine canton – past the bisses, the centuries-old irrigation channels that cling to sheer rock faces, then into forest and high pasture beneath the Tsanfleuron glacier, ducking through an 800-metre tunnel just before the summit at 2,252 metres. It is one of the toughest climbs in French-speaking Switzerland – and almost unknown, precisely because it leads nowhere. For a few kilometres past the summit the road reaches the dam and glacier-lake of Lac de Sanetsch – and there it simply ends. It cannot be crossed by car at all. To carry on into the Bernese Oberland, you hook your bike onto a small cable car and ride a thousand metres down the cliff to Gsteig near Gstaad – the only other way over being a single footpath. So the Sanetsch is that rare thing, a pass you cannot drive across – which is exactly why it stays so wild and empty, the preserve of farmers, hikers and cyclists who seek it out.

From Plan-Conthey, VS