The girls, aged 17 and 18, called police for help after they found got lost on Zurich's 'home mountain'.
They said they were unable to go forwards or backwards.
Emergency call centre operators then instructed the girls on how to transmit their location using WhatsApp.
A police helicopter manned with mountain rescue specialists was dispatched and the girls were rescued shortly afterwards, police said in a statement.
They were uninjured.
The WhatsApp message service allows for the sending of GPS coordinates as attachments in chats.
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