Lawena, the high valley that looks down on the Rhine

Mention Liechtenstein’s mountains and almost everyone thinks of Malbun and Steg, tucked behind the ridge. Lawena is something else. It’s a high valley that looks out towards the Rhine, reached from Triesen, with a history of herders, loggers, avalanches and water. Here’s what the sources say and how I’d approach it, without promising anything the sources don’t back up.

A high valley that drains straight to the Rhine

Lawena is an alp belonging to Triesen, 743.8 hectares of which 209 are productive pasture, with its hut at 1,525 m. The Historisches Lexikon describes a bowl-shaped valley and says it’s the only high valley in Liechtenstein that runs into the Rhine valley. The others, the Samina, Valüna and Malbun, sit on the far side of the ridge.

That position is what interests me. From Vaduz or Triesen you can see the hillside but not the valley, which hides behind the Lawena gorge. At the mouth of that gorge, south of the village, is the hamlet of Säga, which grew up from the 1860s.

A name that’s a warning

Lawena comes from the old Romansh word lavé(g)na, meaning avalanche, and the name doesn’t exaggerate. According to the Lexikon, in the winter of 1923 to 1924 an avalanche destroyed the alp hut along with its inn, and in 1966 a powder avalanche swept away the Säss cowshed. The hut rebuilt on the same spot in 1967 and 1968 is considered avalanche-safe.

So my view is clear. Lawena is a summer and early autumn outing, with settled weather and proper boots. In winter it’s no stroll, and if you want the basics, I cover them in safety in Liechtenstein.

A feud that lasted decades

Lawena already belonged to Triesen when it was first recorded, around 1509 or 1517, and the village rules of 1595 split the high pastures. The upper village got Lawena and the lower village got Valüna. Things went wrong in the second half of the 17th century, when storms and a rockfall in 1659 wrecked part of the grazing. According to the Lexikon, decades of lawsuits followed between the two halves of the village until the split was scrapped in 1718. From 1778 the alp is known to have been leased out, and until 1873 the tenants came from the neighbouring Swiss villages.

Herders, loggers and gentian diggers

What I like most about Lawena is that its history is written in the place names. The Lexikon records «Kalchofa», recalling a lime kiln, «Kolplätzli», where charcoal was made, and «Branntawiilöcher», the holes left by people digging gentian roots to distil schnapps.

Timber was the big earner. From the 18th century until 1947 the valley was logged, and the trunks were floated down the gorge using a dam, the «Klus», built around 1770. Livestock has always been there. In 1809 the alp was allowed 60 cows and cattle and 1,000 sheep, and as late as 1962 some 740 sheep went up. Cheesemaking stopped at the end of the 1950s, and since then it’s been grazed mainly by young and dry cattle.

Lawena’s water lights up the valley

There’s a chapter hardly anyone knows. In 1915 Triesen handed the state the rights to the upper valley’s springs in exchange for 20,000 crowns and upkeep of the road, and by 1927 the state had built the Lawena power plant. It’s a neat example of how a tiny country made use of every valley it had.

The alp stayed with the village. In 2004 it passed from the municipality to the Bürgergenossenschaft Triesen, the corporation of long-established local families.

How would I tackle it?

Carefully. The road up to the alp was built between 1882 and 1900, and by 1901 the hut had a station for walkers, but no official source I’ve seen gives a waymarked route and timings, nor whether the hut serves food today, nor when it opens. I’d use the country’s official geoportal for the route, take plenty of water and food, and treat it as a full-day outing.

The reward, according to the Lexikon, is a geologically interesting valley and a refuge for alpine plants and animals, inside a 1,307-hectare high-mountain hunting area. To me that means going quietly and taking binoculars. If you’d rather have mountains with lifts and facilities, head for the Samina valley and Malbun, and the full picture of the peaks is in mountains in Liechtenstein.