If you're like me, you've had the experience of huffing and puffing your way up a flight of stairs, only to pass some sturdy CrossFit type who's clearly on their fourth, fifth, or tenth trip up and down the hillside. The world is full of long stair climbs for the fit among us, but none are longer than Switzerland's Niesen Treppenlauf. In fact, none come particularly close.

These stairs are nothing to sneeze at.

Mount Niesen is one of the Swiss Alps, located about forty miles south of the Swiss capital of Bern. At 7,700 feet, there are literally hundreds of higher mountains in Switzerland, but Niesen has been especially prized by Swiss painters like Ferdinand Hodler and Paul Klee for its shape, a pyramid of near-geometric perfection. Its name is the German word for "sneeze."

Niesen puts the "fun" back in "funicular."

In 1910, a funicular railway was completed from the village of Mülenen up to the peak. There are beautiful views of Lake Thun and the Simmen Valley from the lodge at its summit. Visitors can stay overnight in one of its eight cozy rooms, grab lunch at the glass-pavilion restaurant, or just enjoy drinks on the sunny terrace.

When in Bern, feel the burn.

But more interesting than the funicular, in my opinion, is what runs up the mountain right alongside it: a two-mile staircase with a slope that gets up to a glute-grinding 65-percent gradient. There are a world record 11,674 steps up the mountainside—enough steps to climb the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai four times, and enough to climb the Statue of Liberty 33 times.

Every year, only five hundred visitors get to take the stairs.

For safety reasons, the stairs are just used for maintenance and not open to the public. But once a year, 500 lucky participants get to tackle the world's longest staircase climb, the Niesen Treppenlauf. The event is held in June, but even so, it's been canceled several times in the past due to snow on the staircase. And the record for running up the equivalent of seven Empire State Buildings? A remarkable one hour and two minutes. If you think you can beat that, the 2018 race was just held last weekend, so you have a full year to train.

Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.