Sightseeing takes on a new meaning when you are in a harness, suspended from a rope at the top of a concave dam wall staring down at the ground hundreds of metres below. Of course you don't have to do a rap-jump (a run down a vertical wall) off the Toules dam to appreciate the scenery of Napoleon's chosen route into Italy over the St Bernard pass. Most prefer to take the St Bernard Express from Martigny to Orsières, then the PostBus along Val d'Entremont to reach the Col du Grand St Bernard. The famous hospice's museum keeps about 10 of the famous breed of dog, which helped save hundreds of lives when snow engulfed the barren pass.
This is only one of many great journeys using a combination of trains, PostBuses, cable cars and funiculars around the Valais. Martigny is the starting point for another, the Mont Blanc Express to Châtelard Frontière on the line to Chamonix in France. The views down into the Trient gorge are not for sufferers from vertigo. Most go as far as Châtelard to take the funicular and panoramic train to the imposing concrete wall that forms the Emosson dam, before jumping on the Minifunic, which rewards you with astonishing views from the top of the dam. An hour's walk and you can see the largest dinosaur footprints discovered in Europe.
Perhaps the best-known mountain railway in the Valais is the rack line from Zermatt to Gornergrat for the finest views of the Matterhorn. For a really romantic experience, you can stay the night at the summit's hotel (00 41 27 966 6400, gornergrat-kulm.ch) and rise before dawn to see the sun gradually turn the snow innumerable shades of brown, purple, red and orange.
A train from Zermatt will take you to an unforgettable walk beside Europe's longest glacier, the Aletsch, reached by cable car from Fiesch station to Kühlboden, the intermediate station on the way up to Eggishorn. A high-level path takes you along Fieschertal, with the glacier at the head of the valley constantly in view, before climbing past a wooden cross to reach the rocky plateau forming the floor of the Märjela valley. Linking the adjacent valleys of the Fiescher and Aletsch, the Marjela can also be reached by a short-cut through a long dark tunnel - torches are definitely needed.
There are few sights in Europe more impressive than the Aletsch glaicer, a Unesco world heritage site that stretches for 23km - from the Jungfrau to the lovely forest of larch and thousand-year-old arolla pines known as the Aletschwald - covers 86 sq kms and is estimated to weigh 27 billion tonnes. In August 2007 Spencer Tunick used it as a venue for one of his installations - assembling 600 naked people to protest against inaction to combat climate change. The walk ends in Bettmeralp where a cable car drops down to Betten station on the Brig-Andermatt railway.
Further east this railway reaches the upper Goms valley, one of the least-populous parts of the Valais, with villages of tightly packed, wooden chalets. In among the houses are small hay barns, often on staddlestones, and the young Rhône is crossed by covered bridges straight out of Madison County. The 11km walk along the Gommer Höhenweg - meaning high-level path - begins in Münster and is perfect for families, since the inclines are gentle, there is plenty of shade among the ancient larch woods and there are several footbridges across crystal-clear streams.
Anthony Lambert is the author of Switzerland without a Car (Bradt Travel Guides, £14.99)
