A hiker claims he was guided back to the right path after he sprained his ankle and got a lost in the Alps.

The Hungarian man said he became disorientated and found his intended route blocked while walking in the mountains near Gimmelwald, Switzerland.

Fortunately, he encountered a friendly local cat who guided him back to safety.

The walker, posting with the username sc4s2cg, has described his experience on Reddit, and a 2013 video purporting to show the same encounter with the black and white cat was linked to on YouTube.

Gimmelwald is a small village in Bernese Oberland at the foot of the Junfrau-Aletsch Unesco World Heritage Site

The lone walker said he had sprained his ankle and was unsure how to get home after discovering the only route back had been closed.

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“[The cat] was just wandering around, [then] found me while I was resting from a hike,” he said.

“Then she was walking and kept looking at me to follow [and] led me straight to the path that would take me back down to the valley.

The walker explained: “Gimmelwald is a tiny, tiny stunningly beautiful village [and] I actually got ‘lost’ in the surrounding mountains.

“It was the end of ski season when I got to [the village of] Lauterbrunnen, so the lifts weren't working and some of the trails were closed.”

The Reddit post has attracted significant interest from local walkers. A number of users were quick to observe they, too, have seen the cat.