Adelboden-Lenk

Bernese OberlandSee it on the map

Foto: Daniel Reust · CC BY-SA 4.0

Region

Bernese Oberland

Country

Switzerland

Local time

Europe/Zurich

Currency

EUR

Adelboden is a working village of dark wooden chalets at 1,350 m at the end of a Bernese valley, and for one weekend every January it becomes the centre of the skiing world: the World Cup giant slalom on the Chuenisbärgli, raced since the 1950s, finishes in a natural amphitheatre above the village and draws crowds that make the race one of the loudest on the circuit. The final pitch is steep enough that it is left to the racers.

The rest of the year it is one half of Adelboden-Lenk, one of the largest ski areas in the Bernese Oberland at around 200 km of pistes, spread over several sectors that link across the Hahnenmoos pass to Lenk, a smaller, quieter village in the Simmental. The core is Sillerenbühl and Hahnenmoos, wide and family-friendly; on the edges are Tschentenalp, Elsigen-Metsch and the Betelberg above Lenk. Apart from all that sits Engstligenalp, a high plateau at nearly 2,000 m reached by cable car past a frozen waterfall, snow-sure and flat enough for cross-country tracks.

It is a quietly traditional place, with cheese dairies, a working farm economy and none of the glamour of the Valais.

Last reviewed 13 September 2026

Best suited to

Families
Beginners
Intermediates
Cross-country

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Where lessons start

Adelboden has nursery slopes at village level and, for a first week, the Engstligenalp plateau is close to ideal: high, flat, snow-sure and enclosed by cliffs, so there is nowhere to get lost and nothing fast coming through. Beyond that, the blues around Sillerenbühl and on the Lenk side are wide and forgiving. This is one of the better areas in Switzerland for families and beginners, and intermediates get a lot of varied terrain; it is not where an expert would spend a week, the Chuenisbärgli aside.

Getting there

Take the train to Frutigen — under an hour from Bern, about two hours from Zurich — and then the PostBus up to Adelboden, around half an hour on a winding road. Lenk has its own railway station on the line from Zweisimmen, which makes it the easier of the two by train. By car, Bern is about an hour and a quarter and Zurich a little over two hours; the road up from Frutigen is steep and gets snowy, so winter tyres matter.

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Qualifications required in Switzerland

Teaching skiing or snowboarding for payment in Switzerland is a regulated profession: an instructor must hold the Snowsports instructor diploma. Instructors listed as certified on Alpine Pal have either sent theirs to us for review or are vouched for by the ski school that invited them.

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Adelboden-Lenk: common questions

Can I ski the Chuenisbärgli race piste?

The upper part of the hill is open as a normal piste and is a fine steep red. The final wall, where the giant slalom is decided, is closed to the public for most of the season to protect the racing surface and because, quite simply, it is very steep — around 60 per cent at its worst. If you want to see what the racers deal with, the best way is to stand at the bottom in January with a few thousand others.