Staubbach Falls

The Staubbach drops about two hundred and ninety-seven metres off the cliff directly above Lauterbrunnen, and because the volume is modest for the height the water does not survive the fall intact - it disintegrates partway down into spray that drifts sideways with the wind, which is what the name means: dust brook. In dry spells it can thin to almost nothing; after rain or in the melt it thickens into a proper column. A path switchbacks up to a gallery cut into the rock behind and beside the fall, wet and short. Byron and Goethe both wrote about it, and Goethe's Gesang der Geister über den Wassern is generally attributed to seeing it in 1779. The valley holds around seventy-two falls in total.

What you actually see

• A 297-metre free fall - one of the highest in Switzerland.
• Water turning to drifting spray - the reason it is called the dust brook.
• A gallery behind the fall - a short wet path cut into the cliff.
• A valley of waterfalls - some seventy-two along the Lauterbrunnen walls.

When to go

May to October; strongest in the June melt. An hour.

Honest expectations

Late summer can reduce it to a thin veil. The gallery path is steep, wet and closed in winter. Wind blows the spray onto the viewpoint. It is right in the village, so it is never solitary.

Nearby

Trummelbach Falls is up the valley; Wengen and Murren are on the terraces above.