Isenfluh: the fourth hamlet of the Lauterbrunnen valley

The Lauterbrunnen valley has four settlements on its terraces, and three of them are on every itinerary. The fourth is called Isenfluh, sits at 1,078 m, and is served not by a mountain railway but by a postbus. What limits this trip is therefore the timetable, not the distance — which is what this page is about.

Quick Facts

Getting There: 38 min from Interlaken Ost, one change at Lauterbrunnen
Duration: Half day
Price: from CHF 10.00
Season: Year-round, with two announced maintenance windows
Best for: A quiet half day, hiking from Sulwald, very few visitors

Checked with the operator 19 August 2026

The bus interval, and the two gaps in it

From Interlaken Ost it is 38 minutes with one change at Lauterbrunnen — measured against the Swiss timetable for Wednesday 26 August 2026, as the day's minimum across nine departure times. That is the fastest connection; eight of the nine departures checked took 43 minutes. The bus ride from Lauterbrunnen alone is 12 minutes.

The more useful figure is not the duration but the interval. Postbus 142 leaves Lauterbrunnen mostly hourly at 35 minutes past — with two gaps on the day measured:

No 10:35 and no 11:35 departure. After 09:35 the next one is at 12:05 — two and a half hours.
No 14:35 departure. After 13:35 the next one is at 15:35 — two hours.

One gap of two and a half hours and one of two, both falling in the part of the day when people actually set out. Turn up in Lauterbrunnen at 10 and you wait more than two hours, or you replan. Neither the cableway operator nor the tourism board mentions this; both give a journey time, which is correct, and which answers a different question from the one that comes up on the platform.

The cableway belongs to the village

From Isenfluh an aerial cableway climbs to Sulwald at 1,520 m, some 440 metres above the hamlet. It is run not by a resort company but by the Genossenschaft Luftseilbahn Isenfluh-Sulwald, a cooperative — that is what the imprint says, and it explains the shape of the offer: member fares, a multi-trip card for residents of Lauterbrunnen, and a timetable built around daily life in the village rather than around excursion peaks.

Adults: CHF 10.00 one way, CHF 16.00 return.
Children: CHF 5.00 one way, CHF 8.00 return.
With the Berner Oberland Pass: CHF 7.50 one way, CHF 12.00 return.

It runs from 7.00, every 15 minutes, with the last trip at 18.15. The operator reserves the right to reduce or suspend the service in bad weather and storms, and individual trips may be dropped when nobody is waiting.

On the Swiss Travel Pass this page says nothing, and that is deliberate. The cooperative's price page lists reductions for the Berner Oberland Pass and for members, and for nothing else. Whether the Swiss Travel Pass is accepted cannot be settled at the source — and for a reader planning a rail trip around that pass, an invented answer is worse than a stated gap.

The last ride down comes after the last fast ride home

This is where the two timetables contradict each other, and it only shows when you lay them side by side:

Last cableway trip: 18.15.
Last fast connection home: 18:13 from «Isenfluh, Dorf», arriving Interlaken Ost 18:54 — 41 minutes, one change.

Take the last ride down and you miss that bus: it left two minutes earlier. The next connection leaves the village at 18:45, walks down to Lauterbrunnen and takes 69 minutes instead of 41. In practice: come down one trip earlier and the connection works. Both figures come from this run — one from the operator, one from the timetable.

What Isenfluh is good for — and what it is not

Isenfluh is not a panoramic summit. It is a lived-in hamlet with a cableway, and that is precisely the appeal: on the other terraces of the same valley, the trains to Wengen and Gimmelwald run full, while here almost nobody gets off. As a half day with a walk from Sulwald it works; as a one-hour viewpoint stop it does not, because the journey there and back alone takes an hour and a half.

Sources

Fares, timetable and maintenance windows from the Genossenschaft Luftseilbahn Isenfluh-Sulwald (pages «Preise» and «Fahrplan»): the fares checked with the operator on 19 August 2026, timetable and maintenance windows retrieved 13 August 2026. Journey times and intervals via transport.opendata.ch for Wednesday 26 August 2026, re-measured on 24.08.2026. Coordinates and altitudes from the swisstopo gazetteer and height service (api3.geo.admin.ch).

Weather at 1,078 m

The forecast applies to 1,078 m above sea level — 510 metres above Interlaken (568 m). It is computed for that altitude, not for the valley.

Loading the forecast …

Forecast for 1,078 m — data: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0)

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you get from Interlaken to Isenfluh?

Train to Lauterbrunnen, then postbus 142 to the stop «Isenfluh, Dorf». Measured against the Swiss timetable for Wednesday 26 August 2026, the fastest connection takes 38 minutes; eight of the nine departures checked took 43. The bus ride from Lauterbrunnen alone is 12 minutes.

How often does the postbus run?

Mostly hourly at 35 minutes past the hour from Lauterbrunnen — but not without gaps. On the Wednesday measured there was no 10:35, no 11:35 and no 14:35 departure: after 09:35 the next bus is at 12:05, after 13:35 the next is at 15:35. That is two and a half hours and two hours without a connection, both in the middle of the day. That, rather than the distance, is what shapes the trip, and neither the operator nor the tourism board states it.

What does the cableway to Sulwald cost?

Adults pay CHF 10.00 one way and CHF 16.00 return, children CHF 5.00 and CHF 8.00. With the Berner Oberland Pass it is CHF 7.50 and CHF 12.00. All amounts from the cooperative’s own price page, checked with the operator on 19 August 2026.

Is the cableway covered by the Swiss Travel Pass?

Not verified here, and therefore not claimed. The cooperative’s price page lists reductions for the Berner Oberland Pass and for cooperative members only; the Swiss Travel Pass does not appear on it. That does not mean it is not accepted — it means the source is silent, and a plausible guess does not belong in a fare table.

When does the cableway not run?

It runs all year, from 7.00 to 18.15, every 15 minutes. The operator announces two maintenance windows in which the cableway can be suspended for individual days — not for the whole span: «Herbstrevision: 02. November bis 6. November 2026», the autumn overhaul from 2 to 6 November 2026, and «Frühlingsrevision: Mo. 26. April 2027 bis 05. Mai 2027, ohne Sa/So 01.05./02.05.2027 (Wochenendbetrieb).» — the spring overhaul from Monday 26 April to 5 May 2027, but not on Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 May 2027, when a weekend service runs. The operator also reserves the right to reduce or suspend service in storms.