Mittelallalin costs CHF 39.50 return instead of CHF 79
The Swiss Travel Pass gets you 50% off the return from Saas-Fee to Mittelallalin, so you pay CHF 39.50 instead of CHF 79. Children aged 6 to 15.99 also pay CHF 39.50 on the full fare, and under 6s go free. No reservation, no booking fee, nothing to organise in advance beyond turning up at the bus terminal.
That CHF 39.50 covers the cable car from Saas-Fee to Felskinn and the Metro Alpin funicular up to 3,457m. This is one of the better 50% deals in the country simply because the full price is so steep, and it sits alongside the rest of our mountain coverage.
Mittelallalin opens in two windows a year, and the gap is long
Mittelallalin runs from 5 December 2025 to 19 April 2026, then closes, then runs again from 18 July to 31 October 2026. That's a three month blackout covering late April, May, June and most of July.
So if you're in Valais in early June with a Swiss Travel Pass and a plan built around the world's highest revolving restaurant, you'll be having lunch somewhere else. Check the dates before you book a night in Saas-Fee for this specific reason.
Saas-Fee has no train station, so you arrive by bus
The nearest railway stations are Visp and Brig, and from either you take a post bus up the valley. From Zurich it's roughly 3 hours 15 minutes via Visp, then the bus. The bus is covered by the Swiss Travel Pass in full.
Saas-Fee itself is car-free, which is lovely once you're there and mildly annoying if you were hoping to park outside your hotel. The bus terminal is where everything starts, including the lift up.
The ride up takes 30 to 40 minutes and ends in a tunnel
- From the Saas-Fee bus terminal, take the gondola or cable car up to Felskinn.
- At Felskinn, walk through to the Metro Alpin station.
- Ride the Metro Alpin, 3 minutes and 20 seconds through a 1,749 metre tunnel, to Mittelallalin at 3,457m.
The Metro Alpin is the highest underground funicular in the world, which sounds more dramatic than it feels. You're in a tunnel. You see nothing. Then the doors open at 3,457m and the whole thing makes sense. Budget 30 to 40 minutes door to summit including the walk between lifts.
What you get at the top: a revolving restaurant, an ice cave and a media room
The world's highest revolving restaurant
It seats 200, turns once an hour, and has been refurbished. The clever bit is the information panels on the window frames, which don't rotate, so as the floor moves the labels stay put over the peaks they name. There's a separate coffee bar seating 60 if you just want a drink and a snack rather than a full sit-down.
The Ice Pavilion, 5,000 square metres inside the Fee Glacier
Built by the glaciologist Benedikt Schnyder and the largest artificial ice cave in the world. A 71 metre tunnel and 120 steps take you ten metres below the glacier surface, and each step is labelled with the age of the ice at that depth set against a date in history. Walking down through a few thousand years of compressed snow does something to your sense of scale.
Inside there are ice sculptures, a mountain rescue model, scenes of glaciologists at work, and an avalanche simulation with light effects and shock waves you feel through your body rather than just hear. Padded coats are handed out at the entrance, so you don't need to dress for it.
Virtuallalin
An interactive media exhibit about the glacier from the outside and the inside. It's indoors, which matters more than it sounds: if the cloud rolls in and the view goes, this still works.
The view from 3,457m stretches to Italy on a good day
Close up you get the Allalinhorn's glaciers and snowfields. Then the Mischabel range with the Bernese Alps stacked behind it, across to Hohsaas with the Fletschhorn and the Weissmies, and the Dom and the Taschhorn. On a genuinely clear day you can see as far as the Po Valley in Italy.
The SaastalCard covers everything except the Metro Alpin
If you're staying overnight in the Saas valley you get a SaastalCard free, and in summer it covers every cableway and bus in the valley. Every one except the Metro Alpin to Mittelallalin, which is exactly the one you want. Metro Plus is a CHF 50 add-on for SaastalCard holders.
| Swiss Travel Pass | SaastalCard + Metro Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost for Mittelallalin | CHF 39.50 | CHF 50 add-on |
| How you get it | Bought before your trip | Free with an overnight stay in the valley |
| Other Saas valley lifts | Usually discounted, not free | Included in summer |
| Trains and buses to the valley | Included | Not included |
If you're staying a few nights in Saas-Fee and riding lots of lifts, the SaastalCard plus the CHF 50 add-on wins. If you're passing through on a wider Swiss trip, the Swiss Travel Pass at CHF 39.50 is cheaper for this ride and pays for the bus from Visp on top.
There's nothing to walk at Mittelallalin, so plan around Felskinn
Mittelallalin is a glacier and a summer ski area. There is no gentle trail from the top station and no strolling to a viewpoint. Two routes do start there and both are roped, crevassed, high-alpine terrain: the Allalinhorn at 4,027m, about two hours and one of the most accessible four-thousanders in the Alps, and the Feejoch, roughly an hour up the piste. Neither is a trainers-and-a-water-bottle situation.
The hiking starts one stop down at Felskinn, including the route to the SAC Britannia Hut, and there's a restaurant with a terrace there too. Ride up, look, eat, come back down to Felskinn and walk from there.
Check the webcam, dress for winter, drink water
- Look at the top station webcam first. Low cloud sitting in the Saas valley often has nothing to do with conditions at 3,457m, and it's frequently clearer up there than it is down in the village. Don't cancel on the basis of what you see out of your hotel window.
- Bring windproof layers even in August. It's cold up there year round.
- Drink before and during. Altitude dehydrates you faster than you'd think, and a headache at the top ruins a CHF 39.50 ticket.