Mountains in Liechtenstein, from the Grauspitz to the Drei Schwestern

From the Städtle in Vaduz, Liechtenstein’s mountains look like a wall. Behind that wall is a whole landscape of summits that hardly anyone on a day trip ever sees. Here’s what they are, how high they are depending on who’s measuring, and where I’d start.

How much of Liechtenstein is mountain?

Far more than it seems from the valley. The country’s official portal says roughly half the territory is mountainous and describes Liechtenstein as the only country that lies entirely within the Alps; that’s its view, and I’m quoting it as such. The statistics office puts it another way. The lowest point is the Ruggeller Riet at 430 m and the highest is the Grauspitz at about 2,600 m, in a country of 160 km².

All of that relief belongs to the Rätikon, the range between Swiss Graubünden, Austria’s Vorarlberg and Liechtenstein. According to the Historisches Lexikon, its main ridge forms the frontier, runs from the Falknis in the west to the Silvretta in the east, and on its southern side, in Switzerland, has dolomite walls that climbers rave about. The name has its own tale. A Roman geographer mentioned a mountain called Retico, and in 1518 the humanist Vadian wrongly pinned the name on this range, which has kept it ever since.

The roof of the country and the peaks with a name

The Grauspitz is the highest summit. The statistics office gives it 2,600 m, while the Liechtenstein Alpine Club and the Lexikon say 2,599, so I’ll call it about 2,600 and leave it there. It lies in Triesen’s territory. So does the Lawena valley, an alp of 743.8 hectares whose name comes from an old Romansh word for avalanche. I haven’t read an official route up it, which is why it sits on my list as one for experienced mountaineers.

The one I’d climb is the Naafkopf, at 2,570 m, because Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Austria meet on its summit. The Alpine Club suggests it from the Pfälzerhütte in about two hours there and back, and the tourist board includes a sunrise ascent in its three-day hut tour. To the west, the Falknis, at about 2,560 m, is where the Rätikon begins, according to the Lexikon.

Then there are the ones you see from everywhere. The Drei Schwestern, 2,053 m according to the Alpine Club, are the three pinnacles towering over Planken and Schaan. Their name comes from a legend that the municipality of Planken tells on its website, and the path along them, with the Fürstensteig, is one of the five routes the tourist board features on its list of top walks.

Mountains by municipality

The high ground is shared out in odd ways. Triesenberg is the largest and highest municipality and owns the whole Samina valley and Malbun behind the Kulm ridge. Vaduz, the capital down on the plain, has exclaves up in the mountains, and its highest point is the Silberhorn at 2,150 m. Schaan reaches all the way to the Bettlerjoch, where the Pfälzerhütte stands, and Planken sits at the foot of the Drei Schwestern. A 2024 tourist board page also points out the Augstenberg, at 2,359 m, as the highest summit in the country that isn’t on the border.

A country that organised itself to climb

The enthusiasm goes back a long way. According to the Historisches Lexikon, the idea of an Alpine club was born in 1897-1898, when the Drei Schwestern path was built, and on 25 March 1909 twenty-seven people met in Vaduz to found a Liechtenstein branch of the German-Austrian Alpine Club. It went independent as the Liechtensteiner Alpenverein in 1946, bought the Pfälzerhütte in 1950 and set up its mountain rescue service in 1954.

Getting around the mountains sensibly

The tourist board talks of about 400 km of waymarked trails. The first thing to learn is the colours. According to the Alpine Club, yellow is an ordinary footpath, white-red-white is a mountain path and white-blue-white is an alpine route that needs kit and experience. Some of the country’s finest routes, like the Fürstensteig, include sections of that last kind, and the tourist board warns of snowfields well into spring.

Altitude changes the weather. The statistics office says the valley rarely drops below minus 10 degrees in winter, but Steg sits between 1,310 and 1,450 m, Malbun at about 1,600 and the Sareis terrace at 2,000, so it’s a different climate up there. At the huts, bring cash, because they don’t take cards. Every hut in the country is on my Liechtenstein mountain huts page.