Saas-Balen
Saas-Balen is a local ski area in Valais with 2 km of mapped pistes and 1 lift, between 1'473 m and 1'521 m. Mostly red, no black.
Rank Saas-Balen against every ski area near Bern for this weekend
This weekend
Measured snow and weekend forecast
Snow at the nearest SLF station
There is no SLF snow station within 15 km of Saas-Balen at a comparable elevation (within 500 m of the ski area's mid-mountain), so Skiboard shows no measured snow for this ski area.
Weekend forecast
- : Partly cloudy, 5°C, wind 5 km/h
- : Partly cloudy, 5°C, wind 5 km/h
Source: MeteoSwiss, local forecast for Saas-Balen (1'501 m, 0.6 km from the ski area), with the temperature at the ski area's mid-mountain, averaged over 09:00–16:00. Fetched .
Written into this page when it was last built. The live ranking uses the newest values.
Your trip
Travel time from Swiss cities
| From | Car | Train |
|---|---|---|
| Bern | 1h 46 | 1h 38Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 1 change |
| Lucerne | 1h 55 | 2h 45Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 2 changes |
| Lausanne | 1h 59 | 2h 27Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 1 change |
| Zug | 2h 13 | 3h 13Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 3 changes |
| Geneva | 2h 30 | 3h 10Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 1 change |
| Geneva Airport | 2h 33 | 3h 20Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 1 change |
| Zürich | 2h 36 | 2h 37Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 1 change |
| Chur | 2h 38 | 4h 07Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 3 changes |
| Zurich Airport | 2h 45 | 2h 59Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 2 changes |
| Basel | 2h 52 | 2h 45Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 1 change |
| Winterthur | 2h 55 | 3h 07Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 2 changes |
| St. Gallen | 3h 13 | 3h 46Saas-Balen, zur kl. Kapelle · 4 changes |
Train: the timetable’s fastest connection leaving the city’s station between 06:30 and 09:30 on Sat 16 Jan 2027, to the valley station of the area’s lowest lift, with the walk from the last stop. Car: an estimate from coordinates, not live traffic. Check your trip on sbb.ch before you go.
Plan your trip
Practical links for the trip. They do not affect the ranking.
- Stay in Saas-Balen Booking.com · Saturday to Sunday, 7 Nov – 8 Nov · 2 adults
The mountain
Facts
- Mapped pistes
- 2 km
- Blue pistes
- <1 km
- Red pistes
- 2 km
- Lifts
- 1
- Top station
- 1'521 m
- Base
- 1'473 m
- Vertical
- 49 m
- Longest mapped run
- 2.5 km, from 1'745 m down to 1'473 m
- Canton
- Valais
How steep the pistes in Saas-Balen are
| Colour | Pistes | Steepest 100 m, typically | All of Switzerland | Here |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue | 1 · 0.3 km | 19 % | 28 % | — |
| Red | 1 · 1.1 km | 20 % | 38 % | — |
The steepest 100 m: 20 % on 8 Heimfahrtpiste Saas-Balen (red).
How this was measured
Skiboard measured the 2 pistes OpenStreetMap maps in Saas-Balen (1.5 km) on swisstopo’s terrain model: the steepest 100 m of each, against every Swiss piste of the same colour.
Measured along the line OpenStreetMap draws, on terrain without snow: snow and grooming soften steps, and a piste can run beside its line. A gradient of 100 % is 45°. Colours as OpenStreetMap maps them, which can differ from the lift company’s piste map: check it before you go.
Piste lines from OpenStreetMap, read 30 Oct 2026 (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL); terrain: swissALTI3D © swisstopo. A piste wrong or missing? Fix the map
About Saas-Balen
Ski areas near Saas-Balen
Saas-Balen in numbers
66 % second homes
Hotels, homes and lifts in Saas-Balen, where the area’s lifts start: the federal statistics, and what the lift company publishes.
Hotels
The Federal Statistical Office publishes no hotel figures for Saas-Balen: it leaves out communes with few hotels.
Homes
66 % of the 467 homes in Saas-Balen are second homes (housing inventory, October 2026). Above 20 %, the Second Homes Act allows no new second homes there, with narrow exceptions.
Commune figures count every hotel guest, not only skiers, and holiday flats are not in the hotel statistics. A licence year is when the installation’s current federal licence starts: usually the year it opened, sometimes a renewal.
Sources: Federal Office for Spatial Development, housing inventory
Featured in
Catalog facts from OpenSkiMap / OpenStreetMap (ODbL). Where an SLF station is nearby, the app shows its measured snow, and the day-pass price is read from the operator’s own shop or tariff; for opening status, check the operator.
Skigebiet Saas-Balen · Domaine skiable Saas-Balen · Comprensorio sciistico Saas-Balen