Susten Pass

The Susten Pass is the furthest destination on this list that still works without a car — and the journey time is not the difficulty. 116 minutes from Interlaken Ost is comparable to the Oeschinensee (123) and Engstligenalp (127), well inside what this site lists as a day trip. What decides the day is how thin the timetable is: on a summer day exactly two usable services run up, and the last one back leaves at 16:46.

Two services up, one back

Measured against the Swiss timetable for Wednesday 12 August 2026, over eight departure times as the daily minimum: train to Meiringen, then the postbus on line 162 towards Andermatt to the Susten Passhöhe stop.

• 08:04 from Interlaken Ost, arriving 10:10 — 2 hours 6 minutes, two changes (at Meiringen and at the Steingletscher).
• 12:33, arriving 14:29 — 1 hour 56 minutes, one change. The fastest connection of the day.
• Back: 16:46 from Susten Passhöhe, arriving 18:54 — 2 hours 8 minutes. Nothing runs down the valley after that.

That produces the arithmetic which actually shapes the trip, and which nobody writes out. Take the fast 12:33 service and you get 2 hours 17 minutes at the pass and spend a good four hours travelling. Leave at 08:04 and you get 6 hours 36 minutes up there. There is no third option — and miss the 16:46 and you are not getting back to Interlaken that day.

For comparison, the same table lists Grosse Scheidegg at 94 minutes and Oeschinensee at 123. The Grosse Scheidegg is closer, the Oeschinensee slightly further — and on both the return is less tight.

2,224 metres is the road, not the pass

The altitude you read everywhere belongs to one particular point — and the federal gazetteer lists two, about 300 metres apart and in two different cantons:

• «Strassenpass Sustenpass (UR) – Wassen» — 2,223.5 m at the federal elevation service. This is the summit of the road and the figure quoted as «2,224 m».
• «Pass Sustenpass (BE) – Innertkirchen» — 2,259 m, 35 metres higher, and on the Bernese side.

Both values come from the federal gazetteer and elevation service, queried on 11 August 2026. The pin on our map sits on the road point, because that is where the bus stop is and where you stand. If the difference sounds trivial: it is the difference between the saddle in the terrain and the place where the road crosses it.

The bus season — and why the road's is nowhere to be found

Without a car it is not the road that decides but the postbus, and its season can be read off the Swiss timetable to the day:

• Last day of service in 2026: Sunday 4 October — the Susten Passhöhe stop still has four departures. From Monday 5 October, none at all.
• Back again from Saturday 19 June 2027 — on Friday 18 June the stop is still empty.

Between those dates lies a good eight and a half months in which the summit simply does not exist on the public transport network. To make sure the zero was not proving the wrong thing, we cross-checked it: the year-round stop at Meiringen does return its departures on exactly the same query dates. So the zero means no service, not a missing timetable. Queried on 12 August 2026.

When the road itself closes is still not written here — and that is the finding, not an omission. The road may be open before the first bus and remain driveable after the last; the two dates above say nothing about it. We found no official source: the canton of Uri, which owns the summit, gives not a single date on its road-information page and advises checking on the day of travel instead. So if you are driving over the pass, that check on the day is unavoidable. If you are coming without a car, the two dates above are what matter.

What it costs is not written here either

For the same reason: no operator fare page was reachable when we checked. Meiringen–Susten–Andermatt is a postbus line in the public transport network, and what a Half Fare card, a GA or the Swiss Travel Pass change about the fare will appear here once we have read it at the operator. Until then: «Not verified».

Is it worth it for me?

Probably yes, if you have a whole day, take the early service, and the pass landscape itself is the point — the Steingletscher, the summit, the paths that start there. Six and a half hours up there is plenty of time.

Probably not, if you can only set out around midday: four hours of travelling for two hours at the destination is a ratio worth knowing before you buy the ticket. And not if the day should stay flexible — with two services up and one back, the timetable decides, not the weather.

Timetable for postbus line 162 at the operator

Where it is

The summit lies at the eastern end of the Haslital, above Innertkirchen and Gadmen, on the border between Bern and Uri; the road continues to Wassen in the Reuss valley. From Interlaken it is the same direction as the Reichenbach Falls, only considerably further. Coordinates and altitude come from the federal gazetteer and elevation service, queried on 11 August 2026.

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