CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Andermatt it runs 47 km to Andermatt; allow about 47 min of riding. The stops in between: Furka Pass and Hotel Belvedere. The highest point is about 2,450 m. Furka Pass is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
The ride follows Furka Pass for 27 km.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
For about 10 km this is Furka Pass, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Realp is the last village on the Urseren valley road before the Furka, a hamlet at about fifteen hundred metres that most people ride through without stopping. That would be a mistake, because the railway station here is the starting point of the Furka cogwheel steam railway, a heritage line run by volunteers, which was rebuilt from abandoned track after the original was closed in 1981. Steam locomotives climb to Oberwald by way of the old mountain route in summer, and even if you do not ride the train, the sight and smell of the engines in the station yard make a decent coffee stop.
Read the complete Realp descent fuel check write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Realp is where the day begins. Next is Furka Pass.
Furka is one of the Alps' great stage roads: 2,429 metres of switchbacks linking Uri and Valais, with the Rhône Glacier at the western foot. From Andermatt the road climbs through the high Urseren valley, past Realp, up a series of hairpins to a pass where the air is thin and cold, and the views unfold across rock, snow and sky. The mountains here are bare and grand, and the sense of altitude is real.
Read the complete Furka Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Furka Pass comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Hotel Belvedere, mostly downhill.
There is a hotel on the Furka Pass that has seen more cameras than most film stars. The Hotel Belvédère clings to the hairpins on the Valais side, a few kilometres below the summit, and for generations it sat at the foot of the Rhône Glacier, whose tongue of ice reached almost to the terrace. The glacier has retreated dramatically since then, leaving bare rock and a grey lake, and in summer it is partly covered with white blankets to slow the melt. The scene is a visible record of a changing climate.
Read the complete Hotel Belvedere write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 38 km into the recorded legs you reach Hotel Belvedere. Next is Gletsch.
Gletsch is where a Bond car drove around a hairpin. The 1964 film Goldfinger used the road near here for its famous chase, with Sean Connery's Aston Martin DB5 winding along the Furka pass, and the old Hotel Belvédère, a big, handsome building from the age of grand Alpine tourism, stands at the foot of the climb. It has the look of a place that has been waiting for travellers for more than a century.
Read the complete Gletsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gletsch closes the day.
Realp → Furka Pass is 27 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Furka Pass → Hotel Belvedere is 11 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.
Hotel Belvédère → Gletsch is 10 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.