Ticino (TI) · One way

Sentiero Verzasca, Sonogno to Lavertezzo

Sentiero Verzasca, tappa 1

Sonogno to Lavertezzo, down the valley beside the river

13.5 kmOur measured line
230 mClimb
595 mDescent
3 h 52Swiss signpost time

PostBus 321 runs the length of the valley all year and stops in every village, so this is one of the few walks you can cut short anywhere and still get home. Sonogno is 70 minutes from Locarno station.

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The first stage of the Sentiero Verzasca, and the one that works as a day. Fourteen kilometres down the valley from Sonogno, mostly gently downhill, through stone villages and chestnut woods with the green river beside you, to the Ponte dei Salti at Lavertezzo. Easy underfoot the whole way: this is a Wanderweg, not a mountain path.

The line we walk

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600m700m800m900m02 km4 km6 km8 km10 km12 km13.5 km954m540m
Flat (<5%) Gentle (5–10%) Moderate (10–15%)

Getting there and back

The lifts and stops this walk depends on

PostBus 321, Locarno – Tenero – Lavertezzo – Sonogno

Bus, 70 minutes end to end

Runs
All year: the first and last departures are the same in July, September and November
First out
Locarno station 07:03, reaching Sonogno at 08:13
Last home
Sonogno 20:51, reaching Locarno at 21:59; from Lavertezzo 21:17
Fare
Arcobaleno zone fares: CHF 2.60 for one zone up to CHF 20.80 for eight or more. A day card costs the same as two singles.

Many services start and end at Tenero rather than Locarno, with a train connection. Some mid-day departures are summer-only.

Canton Ticino, line 62.321 timetable 2026

Read 20 September 2026

At the start

  • Sonogno bus stop, 130 m away
  • Mora bus stop, 368 m away

At the finish

  • Lavertezzo Paese bus stop, 230 m away
  • Lavertezzo, Monda bus stop, 337 m away
  • Monda bus stop, 343 m away

Stops and stations come from OpenStreetMap, measured from the ends of our line. Times and seasons come from each operator's own page, on the date shown. Check them for your date.

Making it a loop

Longer ways round, if you drove or you are running

A one-way walk means a bus or a lift home. These are circuits other people publish near this one, for a day that finishes where it started — usually at the cost of the climb the lift would have given you.

Up to the Capanna Starlaresc and back

16.4 km·+1,817 m

From Brione Verzasca, on the walk itself, a circuit up to the hut and down again. The tourist board publishes it as two days; as one it is 1,817 m of climb in 16 km, which is the trade a runner is usually looking for.

Ascona-Locarno Turismo

Read 20 September 2026

The Odro circuit, above Vogorno

12 km·+1,186 m

Vogorno – Odro – Alpe Bardughè and back, about 5 h 30, past an agriturismo with a wild-haymaking museum and an unattended hut open May to October.

Ascona-Locarno Turismo

Read 20 September 2026

On the way

Where you can stop

Grotto Efra, Sonogno

Grotto at the start

Open
May to October
Food
Restaurant; built in 1943
Phone
+41 91 746 11 73

Its website still carried a winter-closure banner in September, which is stale; the season it states is May to October.

Their own page

Read 20 September 2026

Ai Piee, Brione Verzasca

Restaurant and rooms, halfway

Open
26 February 2026 – 6 January 2027; from 16 October closed Monday and Tuesday
Food
Mon–Fri 07:00–21:30, Sat 08:00–22:00, Sun 08:00–21:00; wood-fired pizza
Phone
+41 91 746 15 44
Their own page

Read 20 September 2026

Osteria Vittoria, Lavertezzo

Osteria with rooms, at the finish

Food
Restaurant; rooms from CHF 135
Phone
+41 91 746 11 11

Its own site is being rebuilt and lists no hours; we have not been able to read a season or a closing day.

Their own page

Read 20 September 2026

How hard it is

Grade, and how long it takes

Hiking trail (yellow), the easiest of the Swiss categoriesSwiss trail class

“Technically easy; medium for fitness over the stage.” — SchweizMobil route 74, stage 1

Three times for the same walk, so you can see where they differ
The operator's time3 h 35SchweizMobil, stage 1
Swiss signpost time3 h 52The official hiking-time method, on our line
At a running pace2 h 08Our estimate; the grade does not change because you run

The official stage is 14 km, 260 m up and 640 m down; ours measures 13.5 km. Figures for the full two-stage route differ between publishers by some 450 m of climb, so we quote the stage, not the route.

Conditions

What it is like right now, and month by month

Weather this week

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Weather this week

Loading the forecast for low point (540 m) and high point (954 m)…

Weather by month

Typical weather Sentiero Verzasca, Sonogno to Lavertezzo: at the lowest point (540 m) and the highest point (954 m). Select a month to see why it is rated as it is.

Monthly climate averages and daylight
Month
WeatherMixedMixedMixedGoodGoodGoodGoodGoodGoodGoodGoodMixed
High point, day / night7°/-2°6°/-2°9°/0°12°/3°16°/7°20°/11°22°/13°22°/13°18°/10°14°/6°9°/2°7°/-1°
Low point, day / night10°/0°10°/0°13°/3°17°/5°20°/10°24°/14°25°/15°25°/16°21°/12°16°/8°12°/4°10°/1°
Rain, mm73608812714014613215414215815890
Snow at high pointPossiblePossiblePossible–––––––FrostPossible
Daylight8 h 5910 h 1911 h 4913 h 3014 h 5715 h 4615 h 2814 h 1412 h 3811 h9 h 298 h 38

Source: TerraClimate 1991–2020 monthly averages. Averages for the area at each point’s elevation (4 km grid, corrected for height). Not a forecast or a report of current trail conditions. Snow at the high point is estimated with a simple snowpack model from these temperatures and precipitation, not observed; steep islands and high summits can hold more snow than it shows. Daylight is for the 15th of each month. Hut, transport and park seasons are separate: check them for your dates.

Before you go

What could stop you

The river is the danger here, not the path

The canton counted five serious water accidents in 2025, three of them in the Verzasca and particularly around Lavertezzo, and it names the hazards: water levels that rise without warning, cold, slippery rock, currents and whirlpools. The official advice includes watching for signs about the opening of the dam — the Verzasca dam sits downstream of this walk.

Canton Ticino, "Acque sicure" 2025 season report

Read 20 September 2026

Lavertezzo is crowded, and the tourist board says so

Ascona-Locarno Turismo's own writing steers visitors away from the "touristy, often crowded places in the valley" and recommends arriving by PostBus rather than driving. If you want the bridge to yourself, walk the stage early and arrive at it rather than starting there.

Ascona-Locarno Turismo, unusual Verzasca

Read 20 September 2026

Parking is charged, and a car makes the day harder

The Verzasca parking card is CHF 12 a day or CHF 40 for a week; short-stay bays at the dam, Lavertezzo Paese and Lavertezzo Ponte are CHF 3 an hour for at most three hours. Since this is a one-way stage, the bus is the better answer anyway.

Fondazione Verzasca, parking

Read 20 September 2026

Season: March to November, as Switzerland Tourism gives it. The valley floor is low — Lavertezzo is at 536 m — so this is a walk for the shoulder seasons as much as the summer.

Make it your day

Shorter, longer, or at a run

There is no official loop, and you do not need one

Route 74 is published only as a line. But the bus stops in every village on it, so you can start and stop anywhere — walk two hours and ride back, or ride up and walk down. That is the flexibility a circle would give you, without the extra kilometres.

Proper circles, higher up

If you want a walk that returns to your car, the side valleys have them: Vogorno – Odro – Alpe Bardughè, 12 km and about 5 h 30 with 1,186 m of climb, past an agriturismo and a hay-making museum; or Brione Verzasca up to the Capanna Starlaresc and back, 16 km with 1,817 m, published as two days.

The second stage

Lavertezzo to Locarno is 21 km with 1,100 m of climb and 7 h 10 of walking — a hard day rather than an easy one, and rated accordingly.

For runners

Runnable almost end to end, and downhill in this direction. The Lodrino–Lavertezzo Skyrace in late May finishes in the village but climbs a different valley to get there; it does not use this path.

Races on this ground: Lodrino–Lavertezzo Skyrace.

Keep it on your phone

Offline maps

Keep your route and maps on your phone for places without a signal. For multi-day trips, prepare them in the installed TrailSplits app.

  1. Open this trail in the app. Install TrailSplits, then open this trail there. On iPhone, downloads in a browser may not be available in the installed app.
  2. Choose your route or stages. Choose Prepare offline above. Wait for the route and maps to finish downloading.
  3. Try it before leaving coverage. Switch offline, close and reopen the app, then use My Hikes to start navigation. Repeat for every part you will need.

Saving a bookmark is not a map download. Storage can be cleared by your device; keep a backup map for remote trips.

Route and sources

What we checked, and when

This walk is an official Swiss hiking route: Sentiero Verzasca (Sonogno - Lavertezzo) (SchweizMobil route 74). We publish our own line on OpenStreetMap, matched onto the official one and checked against it.

  • Official line 13.58 km · ours 13.47 km (-0.8%)
  • 95% of the official line is within 6 m of ours; the furthest point is 43.5 m
  • Between km 2.87 and 2.87 our line runs up to 43 m from the official one — a difference we have not explained yet
  • Climb read from a 30 m terrain model along our line, smoothed; an operator's figure will differ
  • Built on 2026-09-20