← All Passes
Susten
2'224 m
Berne / Uri
The Susten Pass crosses at 2,224 metres between Innertkirchen in the canton of Bern and Wassen in Uri, on the Gotthard axis.
2'224 m
Berne / Uri
The Susten Pass crosses at 2,224 metres between Innertkirchen in the canton of Bern and Wassen in Uri, on the Gotthard axis.
ROUTE
ELEVATION PROFILE
ROUTE MAP
DESCRIPTION
The Susten Pass crosses at 2,224 metres between Innertkirchen in the canton of Bern and Wassen in Uri, on the Gotthard axis. Unlike the ancient trade crossings, the old route here was only a mule path, used since the 17th century but never strategically important; the Susten itself is young. Built between 1938 and 1945 and opened in 1946, it was the first Swiss pass road purpose-built for the motor car, for reasons both touristic and military, with great importance attached to embedding it into the landscape – its retaining walls faced in natural stone. With twenty-five bridges and twenty-five tunnels, it was regarded at the time as one of the most beautiful roads in Europe.
The appetite for it was immediate: on the opening Sunday some 15,000 vehicles crossed – about twelve per cent of all the cars then registered in Switzerland. Today it is a summer-only road, one of the last to be cleared each year, often shut from November until June, climbing through galleries to a short tunnel at the crest before opening onto the turquoise meltwater lake and ice of the Stein Glacier. With the Furka and the Grimsel it completes the classic three-pass loop of the central Alps – a road built less to reach somewhere than to be driven for its own sake.
SELECTED ROUTE