Arth-Goldau - Rigi
I did this hike together with a friend on the 16th of August, 2025. I had been wanting to hike up to Rigi for some time, and after talking to my friend, we decided to go. There are many trails leading up to Rigi, but we decided to start in Arth-Goldau and do the trail below.
Full route: Swisstopo
We started the hike in Arth-Goldau, which we reached after a short train ride from Zürich. Out of Arth-Goldau, you follow the road, which leads you up through fields, and quickly gives you nice views over the area and the Mythen peaks in the background.
The first part of the hike is through open landscape, after which you turn of the road and follow a hiking path through forest. Walking through the forest, we still had views in direction Arth-Goldau and to the densely tree covered rock walls around us.
We came past a perfectly placed bench on the way up, and decided to stop for a snack break. If there is something they are good at in Switzerland, it is placing the benches in places with amazing views.
After the break, we had to cross a field with cows. It is not my favourite thing to do, but they didn’t seem very interested, so it went fine. The weather had been changing a lot the week before the hike with periods of rain, which resulted in many smaller waterfalls running down over the rock walls.
As we came up on the trail following the ridge leading up to Rigi, we came across many different flowers. We also here had the first views up to Rigi in the distance. The trail for the rest of the way was on a wide gravel road, and only for a short part on hiking path.
Walking along the ridge, you also have amazing views over Vierwaldstättersee and Bürgenstock in the middle. We had our lunch break here while enjoying the views and warming a bit in the sun.
The last part up to Rigi is on a wider gravel road. Here, there also started to be more people, as it is a very popular place to visit. Before reaching the top, we got a glimpse of the tower and our end destination.
After spending some time up at Rigi, enjoying the views and sharing a beer, we took the train back down to Arth-Goldau, from where we continued with train to Zürich.
