alainr

We want to go hiking for 4-5 days in june. we loved wengen and zermatt--green,no cars and cows! we want a place where we can pick different trails to hike/walk, preferable w/o driving.
is pontresina a good base? is st. moritz better?

other places we have heard about Adelboden, Lenk and Betteralp.
Do you recommend any of these? charming village to stay in.

Cimbrone

I'm a hiker and would not recommend St. Moritz. It's not only ritzy, but also big and sterile.

We stayed not too far away in Soglio (the Bregaglia Valley) at this wonderful hotel. www.palazzosalis.ch/ Lots of wonderful hiking trails all throughout the valley.

I also liked the town of Sils Maria very much. It's quite close to St. Moritz and there's great hiking from there as well.

enzian

I have not been to the Engadine but my friends who have spent a lot of time hiking in Switzerland really love Sils.

I went to Bettermalp with these friends in 2001 and have been back 3 times since. It is a car-free village perched high on a bench above the Rhone Valley. There is great hiking there; everything from lift-assisted walks to long strenuous hikes. Most of them have as a goal a near or far view of the Aletschgletscher.

Here are a few photos I found on the web:

http://alps.virtualave.net/english/aletsch.htm

You can hike to the top of a peak (Eggishorn or Bettmerhorn) and see the whole glacier, or you traverse a ridge a hundred meters or so above it, or you can walk right down alongside it. There is plenty to keep you busy for 4 days of hiking.

TuckH

A nice hike from Sils is the one to the Fex Valley after going up the cable car.

A horse drawn wagon will take you back to the village. Nearby Pontresina is a nice town and would make a good base (we stayed there).

Soglio, as per Cimbrone's suggestion, is very beautiful. It's not as central to other hiking options as is Pontresina however.

Ingo

Another vote for Pontresina. Very good choice for hiking; have stayed there myself and loved it.

Although Sils gets my first vote

DalaiLlama

A great hiking report with many useful details:
http://tinyurl.com/5gggvb

Other good hiking ideas:
http://tinyurl.com/acejcy
http://tinyurl.com/d6cv33
and many others on that same site (use Google Maps to find where they are)

Wondering how ritzy it is? Note that St. Moritz can be spelled Mo-Ritz - say it slowly and you get it...

Porsches are like Kias elsewhere, you need a Lamborghini to be noticed... But not far away, in many directions, are perfectly lovely and normal locations.
For access to hikes in the Swiss National Park (a big nature reserve) look to the town of Zernez, down the Engadin valley from St. Moritz.

Maudie

We stayed at Pontresina also, thought that St Moritz was pretty around the lake but not our scene at all.

We found Pontresina was a great base to catch trains in both directions. We did a lovely hike from Guarda to Ardez, wish now that we had gone further. All the advice we were given was to hike from Ospizio Bernina to Alp Grum, we thought it was like walking through a moonscape and I gave up the green mountains for that!

Another hike we did was from Preda to Bergun following an old historic railroad path, it was so beautiful. We even made sure we were standing under one of the pigtail via ducts when the Bernina Express came through, got some great photo's. We then got the train to Filisur and walked down to the Landwasser Viaduct with a timetable and waited for another train to come, that was awesome too. Had my mini tripod set up to get a shot of the train going into the tunnel.

I don't think you can go wrong in any of those places, its all stunning.