Grüben is in the Turtmanntal, a hanging valley above the South side of the Rhone Valley.
This is a remote spot, suitable for poets & writers seeking peace but is a necessary halt on the Chamonix-Zermatt Walk.

The railway station in the Rhone Valley is Turtmann & you will probably have to change to a local train from Sierre or Visp. There is a cable car up to Oberems & a bus from there. I believe the road is now passable, as much of the village now appears to be holiday homes. Everybody like me walks in & out, as the links above imply.

...you need somewhere to stay. That means the Hotel Schwarzhorn. This has rooms & a bunk house.

There are four options from the West for getting into Grüben, all but one covered on previous pages of the Chamonix-Zermatt Walk: two ways over Bella Tola; the Forcletta (Fugglitti) Pass & the Meid Pass. The Meid Pass from St Luc seems a bit pointless, as it is by far better to traverse Bella Tola for the fantastic view.
However, if the weather is poor, the Meid Pass looks a safer option, although I have not done it.

The Augstbordpass - next stage East on the Chamonix-Zermatt Walk

This map is copied from the Official Map of the Automobil-Club der Schweiz, (with their permission) which is on this link but not to scale You go up an obvious path to the East of the Hotel Schwarzhorn. This is my diary entry from July 13th 1982:- "We left at 0735 & flogged up through the trees in the cool. It was Very Wise to leave early. Then, there was a long hanging valley. We had lunch at the top of the Augstbordpass. Down the other side, there were a lot of snowfields. The path then goes up a bit & round the ridge to the south on a hairy little track with a 5000' drop to the left. It then goes down to Jungen village in huge zig-zags. The sign said 1 hour to St. Nicklaus but we took 1 hr 25 mins & moved pretty fast."

There are, in fact, two options on the East side of the pass... ...after getting down below the July snowfields, 1. There is a signpost for the St Nicklaus option above (lower track on the map). 2. The other goes straight ahead towards Embd & has an up-and-down 'contour' section after crossing the stream. However, there are even better views across to the Mischabel range than on the Jungu option. Eventually, the path drops to Kalpetran in the Mattertal & it is a short walk to Stalden. On the C-Z Walk, take this option if you intend to stay in Stalden & go up to Grächen the next day for a rest day, well earned, before tackling the Europaweg to Zermatt.		Augstbordpass West side
Augstbordpass up the green sward	After the steeper bit was (in 2007) a Blockgletscher caused by Global Warming	The top of the East side: easier walking
The St Nicklaus option (left) & Kalpetran option (right) seen from Grächen.	The Durrenhorn, the end of the Mischabel from the Kalpetran route	Mattertal looking South to the Zermatt Breithorn. The Europaweg is high up the East (left) side

On June 28th 2002. Diary: It was raining so hard that the pass routes were out of the question, so I walked down (North) the Turtmanntal to where the bergweg to "Ergisch bei wasserleitung" is marked. Now, wasserleitung (water track = irrigation ditch) are almost horizontal but the bergweg sign was justified by the precarious position of the track, in some places over very steep precipices & a steady nerve was required. The rain had also made it slippery. I got to Ergisch & had a coffee but the rain persisted, so I walked all the way down the path to Gampel Steg, having unintentionally traversed Bella Tola entirely on foot from & to the Rhone Valley. (I then thumbed lifts to Visp & Stalden & walked up to Grächen for another stage on the Chamonix-Zermatt Walk - the Europaweg).