Well, at first we weren't sure... We wanted to return to the same corner of Switzerland as the day before, in Canton Graubünden, where the skies have been clear but the air is also warm. But if I am going to do a winter hike, it has to be with real snow, not on half-melted, icy, slippery trails.
Studying the maps and the local tourist websites, a round tour high above the town of Thusis looked promising, elevation was higher than the day before, but it was also a sunny exposure, so who knows?
When we got to the village of Obertschappina we could see that the snow wasn't very good, even though we were at 1600m. The first part of the round tour through the forest was icy and hard to walk, and also longer than on the map. After 40 minutes we were back on the main road, and could see that the continuation of the trail was on bare asphalt. Just then the next small bus was heading further up the mountain to the Glas Pass so we hopped on it at the spur of the moment, and decided to worry about the rest of the hike later.
Good choice! The snow at the pass was worlds different than 200m further below, and we had heard we could catch a small bus back (runs only in winter) from the ski lift at Oberurmein, just two hours walking along the sunny hillside, and everything worked out perfectly. Altogether we walked almost three hours, and at times it was even almost too warm!
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| Heading up the hill from Thusis, it is incredible how little snow there is left in this area. We were worried we'd end up doing a "winter" hike without snow |
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| Down below in the valley, this area is called the Domleschg. This would have been great choice to hike for us, as the weather is so warm. |
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| This is where our originally planned round tour hike was to begin, in the tiny village of Ober Tschappina. |
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| 40 minutes on an icy trail through the forest brought us back to the main road pretty close to where we started, and the next segment was on pure asphalt, so we decided to catch the bus heading up to the Glas Pass and see what it looked like from there. It was perfect! We had just discovered that there was a winter bus in Oberurmein, so we made that our new goal. |
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| Perfect winter conditions here at the Glas Pass (1845m). There were lots of people in the little bus, probably all going to the restaurant which is up the trail on the right. |
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| We headed straight away into the beautiful landscape |
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| In the back, the local mountain called Piz Beverin which actually threw a shadow quite quickly on the village of Ober Tschappina, where our original round tour was supposed to end. |
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| Ahead of us the peaks of the Domleschg |
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| Looking behind us at the trail we took from the Glas Pass and Piz Beverin. It is also a sledding trail. |
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| It was actually very mild to walk up here, almost too warm in the black stockings |
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| In this landscape there used to be a lake (it has disappeared, not actually covered in snow) |
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| Zoomed view of Obertschappina where we started on the first part of the hike |
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| It was such a perfectly beautiful landscape |
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| Zoomed view of the first of two small family ski areas on this mountain. This was about the half-way mark of the second part of our walk. |
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| This was the largest number of people we ran across on our walk. But it wasn't a large ski hill, so we continued past this quite quickly. |
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| Another look backward at Piz Beverin |
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| The second half of the upper hike gave us some nice views into the Domleschg and Albula Valleys |
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| Below us the village of Oberurmein, the goal of this second part of the hike. Another small bus runs up here in winter, because it is also a small family ski area |
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| The read trail is what we had found on the Internet as a winter hike suggestion for this area. The first part through the forest was longer than expected, and the snow was poor. So we took the next bus to the Glas Pass, and the 7 km to Ober Urmein were a perfect winter trail. |
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| Back at the train station in Thusis, I was trying to get Urs to lighten up a little... he is otherwise always so serious. |
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| This is the part of the Switzerland where we did the winter hike |
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