- Where
- Uri and Valais
Switzerland - Start / end
- Realp (Uri) to Gletsch and Oberwald (Valais), Main Road 19
- Length
- 29 km Realp–Oberwald (alpen-paesse.ch, a pass database)
- Highest point
- 2,429 m (Swiss national map); 2,436 m on the sign at the top
- Season
- Closed in winter; reopened 29 May 2026; closed 27 Oct in 2025 (Canton Uri)
- All year
- Car train through the Furka Base Tunnel, Realp–Oberwald, about 20 minutes (Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn)
- Status
- Open (alpen-paesse.ch, 13 Oct 2026); winter closure due
- Advisory
- Switzerland Level 1
Hairpins hung off a bare grey mountainside, the clouds coming up the valley faster than the car. Halfway up stood a tall shuttered hotel with its windows boarded, and beside it a glacier that somebody had covered in white sheets, like the furniture in a closed house. A steam train whistled somewhere below. At the top the wind was coming from both sides at once.
Route facts
- Route
- Realp (Uri) to Oberwald (Valais), by way of Gletsch
- Length
- 29 km: 12 km up from Realp, 17 km down to Oberwald (alpen-paesse.ch, a pass database)Checked · alpen-paesse.ch: Furkapass
- Season window
- Closed in winter; reopened 29 May 2026; closed 27 October in 2025 and 11 November in 2024; closings since 2000 between 21 October and 2 DecemberChecked · Canton of Uri, Baudirektion: pass openings and closings since 2000
- Closures
- Open as read Listed as open, unchanged since 9 October 2026, on 13 October 2026; no closing date had been announced. The winter closure is due.Live alert: alpen-paesse.ch: Furkapass (pass database); Canton of Uri road information
- Fees
- Nothing to book for the pass road; the car train through the base tunnel is ticketedChecked · Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn: Furka car transport
- Cost to enter
- Free
- Anchor point
- Furka Pass summit
46.57° N, 8.41° E
The short answer
The Furka Pass (Furkapass) is a road pass in the Swiss Alps at 2,429 metres, on Main Road 19, linking Realp in the canton of Uri with Gletsch and Oberwald in Valais, German Wikipedia records. The pass database alpen-paesse.ch gives the drive from Realp to Oberwald as 29 kilometres: 12 kilometres up from Realp at 1,538 metres, 17 down to Oberwald at 1,369. The road closes in winter. In 2026 it reopened on 29 May at 9:00, the canton of Uri announced; the canton’s own record gives its last five closings as 27 October 2025, 11 November 2024, 30 October 2023, 9 November 2022 and 3 November 2021. On 13 October 2026 alpen-paesse.ch listed the pass as open, unchanged since 9 October, and no closing date had been announced. When the pass is closed, cars cross on the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn’s car train through the Furka Base Tunnel between Realp and Oberwald, which runs all year and takes about 20 minutes.
Why it's worth knowing
A glacier in blankets. The Rhone Glacier, beside the pass road on its western side, is the source of the Rhône. Wikipedia records that it has retreated about 1,300 metres in the last 120 years, and that Swissinfo reported in 2025 it had lost about 60 percent of its volume since 1850. For several years UV-resistant white fleece blankets have been laid over about 2 hectares of it in the warm months, which is estimated to reduce melting there by up to 70 percent. An ice grotto is cut into the glacier each year near the Hotel Belvédère; English Wikipedia says the glacier moves 30 to 40 metres a year, so the 100-metre tunnel and chamber have to be recarved every season.
A hotel beside a glacier that moved. The Hotel Belvédère stands at 2,272 metres on a hairpin of the western ramp. German Wikipedia says it was built around 1882 and has been closed since 2015, and that in the early 19th century the Rhone Glacier still reached down to Gletsch. Tourists have come to see the glacier since about 1870, English Wikipedia records.
Roads, rails and a film. The pass road was built between 1864 and 1866, nearly 40 kilometres from Hospental to Oberwald and at least 4.2 metres wide, with the federal government paying two-thirds of the cost for military reasons, German Wikipedia says; horse-drawn post coaches used it until the first postbus crossed in 1921. A railway followed, through a summit tunnel at 2,160 metres opened in 1925, until the Furka Base Tunnel replaced it in 1982; enthusiasts saved the old mountain line, and a steam railway has run its full length again since 12 August 2010. In 1964 scenes of the James Bond film Goldfinger were shot on the pass, and a curve on it is now signed “James Bond Strasse”, with a lookout and a small car park.
The field notes
2,429 or 2,436
The Swiss national map gives the pass as 2,429 metres; the sign at the top, German Wikipedia notes, still says 2,436, the figure on the old Siegfried map.
Where the water parts
German Wikipedia places the European watershed between the Mediterranean and the North Sea on the pass: the Furkareuss on the Uri side flows to the Reuss and the Rhine, and the Muttbach on the Valais side to the Rhône.
The Hotel Belvédère at the glacier’s edge in September 1983, from a Kodachrome slide.
Photograph: Acroterion · CC BY-SA 4.0
The road dropping from the Furka toward the Urseren valley after a storm.
Photograph: Dreamy Pixel · CC BY 4.0 · cropped
The young Rhône braiding across the Gletsch plain below the glacier’s rock step, August 2013.
Photograph: Zairon · CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped
- Stand at the very top for a minute facing one way, then the other.
- Leave the car by the shuttered hotel and walk down to the ice. Give it an hour, not ten minutes.
- Keep to the path near the glacier, however tempting the short cut across the stones.
- Leave the stones by the ice where they are. The glacier has given up enough already.
- Put the flask in the bag, not the boot. I have written this on every list since, and I still forget.
The blankets on the Rhone Glacier. White, UV-resistant fleece sheets laid over about 2 hectares of the Rhone Glacier each warm season, a short walk from the Hotel Belvédère on the Furka Pass road, to slow the melting of the ice. Wikipedia records that they have been used for several years and are estimated to reduce melting there by up to 70 percent, while the glacier as a whole has retreated about 1,300 metres in 120 years. In 2018 the photographers Simon Norfolk and Klaus Thymann photographed the wrapped glacier for the charity Project Pressure, in a series called “Shroud”.
Tally, in the marginFrom the road I took the white patches for old snow. It was only up close, at the edge, that I saw the seams.
Getting there
How to drive it. From the east, the pass road leaves Realp in the Urseren valley, below Andermatt, and climbs 12 kilometres to the summit; from the west it climbs from Oberwald in the Goms valley through Gletsch, where the Grimsel Pass road branches north. alpen-paesse.ch gives average gradients of 7.4 percent on the east side and 6.6 on the west. The Hotel Belvédère and the path to the Rhone Glacier are on the western ramp below the summit.
When to go. In summer only. The pass reopened on 29 May in 2026 and closes for the winter when snow arrives, on a date that changes from year to year: the canton of Uri’s record since 2000 gives closings from 21 October (2009) to 2 December (2011), and openings from early May to late June. English Wikipedia says the Rhone Glacier can be visited only between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox, roughly 120 days a year. Outside the pass season, the car train through the Furka Base Tunnel between Realp and Oberwald runs all year.
What to arrange ahead. Nothing to book for the pass road; the car train is ticketed, by the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn. alpen-paesse.ch lists a ban on trailers, caravans included, and an 18-tonne weight limit between Realp and the summit. Check the pass’s status before setting out, especially in May, June, October and November.
Safety. The State Department has Switzerland at Level 1, exercise normal precautions, its lowest level; it says “Switzerland’s mountains can be dangerous because of avalanches, landslides, and sudden weather changes” (advisory dated 14 August 2026 in its feed, read 13 October 2026). The hazards here are exactly those, plus steep hairpins, cyclists and the unstable ground left by the retreating glacier.
Mark this place
Common questions
When is the Furka Pass open?
The Furka Pass road between Realp and Gletsch in Switzerland is closed in winter. In 2026 it reopened on 29 May at 9:00, the canton of Uri said; the canton’s record gives the 2025 season as 28 May to 27 October, and closings since 2000 between 21 October and 2 December.
How high is the Furka Pass?
The Furka Pass is 2,429 metres high on the Swiss national map, German Wikipedia records, though the sign at the top still gives 2,436 metres, the height on the old Siegfried map. It links Realp in Uri with Gletsch and Oberwald in Valais.
Can you cross the Furka in winter?
Not by road. When the Furka Pass is closed, cars cross between Realp in Uri and Oberwald in Valais on the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn’s car train through the Furka Base Tunnel, which the railway says runs all year and takes about 20 minutes; the tunnel opened in 1982.
Can you see the Rhone Glacier from the Furka Pass road?
Yes. The Rhone Glacier lies beside the Furka Pass road on its western, Valais side, next to the closed Hotel Belvédère, and English Wikipedia says it can be visited between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox, roughly 120 days a year.
Why is the Rhone Glacier covered in blankets?
To slow its melting. For several years, Wikipedia records, UV-resistant white fleece blankets have covered about 2 hectares of the Rhone Glacier near the Furka Pass in the warm months, an effort estimated to reduce melting there by up to 70 percent.
Was Goldfinger filmed on the Furka Pass?
Yes. Scenes of the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, with Sean Connery and Gert Fröbe, were shot on the Furka Pass in Switzerland, German Wikipedia records, and English Wikipedia says a curve on the road is now signed “James Bond Strasse”, with a lookout and a small car park.
Is the Hotel Belvédère on the Furka Pass open?
No. The Hotel Belvédère, at 2,272 metres on the western ramp of the Furka Pass beside the Rhone Glacier, was built around 1882 and has been closed since 2015, German Wikipedia records.
How long is the Furka Pass road?
The pass database alpen-paesse.ch gives the Furka Pass road as 29 kilometres from Realp in Uri to Oberwald in Valais: 12 kilometres up the eastern side and 17 down the western. The original road of 1864 to 1866 ran nearly 40 kilometres from Hospental.