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Footpaths in the mountains are signed with customary Swiss efficiency.

Unambiguous waymarks help walkers keep to their route

The easiest paths (wanderweg) are waymarked with yellow paint flashes. White-red-white striped waymarks are used on more challenging mountain trails (bergweg), while blue-and-white waymarks indicate a so-called alpine route (alpenweg). These alpine routes often involve cairned areas where no proper path exists; there could also be some scrambling involved, with via ferrata/klettersteig style sections of ladder, lengths of fixed rope/cable, or iron rungs drilled into the rock to enable users to surmount difficult crags. Agility and a good head for heights are essential.

Signposts are found at most trail junctions. Apart from a few major resort areas such as Zermatt, they conform to a national standard and provide information with typical Swiss efficiency. Coloured yellow these signs bear the names of major landmark destinations, such as a pass, lake, hut or village, or sometimes a name that appears on no map but which refers to a specific footpath junction. Estimated times to reach these places are given in hours and minutes, while some of the signposts include a plate giving the name and altitude of the immediate locality. In the early stages of a holiday, times may seem difficult to achieve, but most hill walkers soon find them less of a challenge.