The Samina valley, the Liechtenstein you can't see from Vaduz

From Vaduz, Liechtenstein looks like a valley with one hillside. What you can’t see is that behind that hillside lies a whole other valley, the Samina, with its alps, its river and a stretch the Historisches Lexikon describes as the country’s only wilderness. For me it’s the hidden half of Liechtenstein, and it deserves a day.

What it is and where it begins

The Samina valley lies east of the Kulm ridge, behind Triesenberg, and on the Liechtenstein side its floor runs from 950 to 1,300 m. It’s drained by the Samina, which according to the Lexikon collects water from about 50 km² of mountains, runs 12.93 km inside the country and 9.22 km in Austria, and flows into the Ill and from there the Rhine. To the north the valley continues into Frastanz, in the Vorarlberg.

The layout is easy to remember. On the west side are the Sücka, Bargälla and Garsälli alps, belonging to Triesenberg, and the Plankner Garselli forest reserve; on the east side are Vorder- and Mittlervalorsch, belonging to Schaan, and the Zegerberg reserve. South of Steg the valley becomes the Valüna, and the side valleys to the east are the Valorsch and the Malbun. The name Samina is pre-Roman, turns up in 1355 as Samiun, and nobody has yet worked out what it means.

The top half, from Steg to Valüna

This is where nearly everyone starts, and with good reason. Steg, with its ring of huts, sits where the valleys branch, and from the 1947-1948 reservoir a path follows the stream towards Valüna, a broad alpine valley that belongs to Triesen. The Lexikon notes that the governor Josef Schuppler rated Valüna the best alp in the country in 1815, and that today it’s a much-loved spot for summer walking and winter cross-country skiing. It has three grazing tiers, Valünasäss at 1,409 m, Waldboda at 1,557 m and Obersäss at 1,646 m.

On the Kulm side above Steg is the Sücka alp, with its inn at 1,402 m. It was one of the first stops for visitors to the country’s mountains, back in the 1870s, and the Lexikon tells the legend of the Sückacheris, a cheating, gambling herdsman. In winter, the road from the Kulm down to Steg past Sücka has served as a natural toboggan run since 1963.

The bottom half, the wild bit

The northern stretch is a different story. The Lexikon describes it as a state of wilderness unique in Liechtenstein, with the Samina running free and side streams pushing out great fans of debris. For centuries it was used for grazing goats and sheep in the woods, for hunting and for timber, which was floated down the river to Frastanz until 1910. There was even a mine in the Valorsch until the early 17th century.

Since 1970, which the Lexikon calls the International Year of Nature Conservation, there’s been talk of making it a large protected area, and in 1977 an alpine reserve of 1,363 hectares was proposed. It never became a national park, but there’s been a plant protection area since 1989, the Garselli-Zegerberg forest reserve since 2000 and a winter quiet zone for wildlife since 2014, below the Bargälla alp. On the Austrian side, the mountain pine woods have been Natura 2000 sites since 2002. Together, the Lexikon says, they’d add up to around 2,500 hectares of cross-border wilderness.

Can you walk through it?

Yes, but with care. According to the Lexikon, the lower valley is only opened up by the Drei Schwestern path along the top and the Samina trail along the bottom, which runs to Amerlügen in Frastanz. The Liechtenstein Alpine Club lists Steg-Saminatal-Amerlügen among its popular routes but grades it as an alpine path, so it’s no Sunday stroll. The upper valley, on the other hand, is for everyone. And if you want to turn it into a hut walk, the Alpine Club gives a route from Steg to the Pfälzerhütte up the Valüna valley of two to three hours.

Getting there

Public transport has one way in, the Steg FL, Tunnel stop on bus 21, about 25 minutes from the capital with one bus an hour. In winter the same stop is your starting point for cross-country skiing at Steg. I’d carry water and food. A 2024 tourist board page mentioned a restaurant at the Valünahütte, open from June to October depending on the weather, but I haven’t got a current source to confirm it.