With the steepest winch lift to the alpine reservoir

In recent years, the Oberhasli power plants have opened up factory railways in the Grimsel and Susten area for tourist use. The cable cars take you into impressive mountain worlds, but the ride itself has always been spectacular. In winter most of the lifts are not in operation, special offers are available for winter access to the Grimsel Hospice.

In summer the cable cars of the "Grimsel World" in the Gadmertal go to the Tällihütte and in the direction of Trift (2h40 to the famous Trift suspension bridge), from Willigen near Meiringen to the Reichenbach Falls, and in the valley to the Grimsel to the Gelmersee, to the Hospiz and over the Grimselsee in the direction of the Grimsel Pass.

The ascent and descent with the Gelmer Railway is particularly eventful. A maximum gradient of 106 percent makes the single-car funicular one of the steepest in Europe. On the 10-minute descent you can really feel how steep a 45 degree angle is. The car travels at a speed of 2 m/s, suspended on a 10-strand rope with a diameter of 38 mm.

Nevertheless, hikers who are fit for the mountains should not miss the chance to take the circular hike in the Grimsel granite around the Gelmersee (2h) with good hiking boots. Steeply sloping rock sections are secured with fixed handrail ropes. More sporty hikers take the descent via Chüenzentennlen and the old Grimsel trail with the "Hählen Platten" back to Handegg. Here it is also worth taking a look from the suspension bridge at the Handeggfall (connection from Hotel Handeck to the Gelmerbahn).

The Gelmersee is 450m above the Grimselstrasse, on the way from Innertkirchen to the Grimselpass at Handegg on the upper left. The reservoir was built at the same time as the Grimselsee (until 1929). The Gelmersee has a usable volume of 13 million m³ and lies at 1850m. Interesting to know: Only part of the water comes from its own catchment area, a large part is discharged from the Grimselsee (via a tunnel connection) into the Gelmersee. The water is used in the Handeck 1 power station. The Gelmer dam is a 35m high gravity dam with a wall volume of 81,000m³ and a walkable crown length of 370m. A (much smaller) lake already existed at the site before the dam was built.