A Swiss Secret: skiing the ENGADIN VALLEY aND THE ALBULA TRAVERSE
St. Moritz and the beautiful Engadin Valley.
The Alps are famous for their ski huts. These lodges, perched high in the alpine, offer comfortable accommodation and home-cooked meals from mid-February through late May. It’s possible to ski from hut to hut with only a light touring pack through some of the best ski terrain on earth. Most of the time, these tours start in one province, and end in another. While some hut-to-hut routes get all of the attention, like the Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt, there are countless other traverses that offer great skiing and fewer crowds.
In March 2023, I led a group on the Albula traverse, from St. Moritz to Davos through the Albula range in eastern Switzerland, arranged by Pollux Adventures. The Canton of Graubunden (Grisons) is the most interesting Canton in Switzerland, thanks to its unique blend of Swiss-German, Italian, and Romansch cultures. The scenery here is unmatched, and the ski crowds are nowhere to be found, making it a powder skier’s paradise. The Albula traverse samples the best skiing in the area.
If your train has a snowplow, you might be in for a powder day!
I arrived a day early to check conditions. Riding the train across Switzerland through a blizzard, I knew the next day was going to be one of the best days of the season. I quickly made my way to Corvatsch, the premier freeride (side-country) resort in the valley. Riding the tram, I noticed that everyone else around me had carving skis in contrast to my wide powder-touring skis– everyone else was here to ski groomers! Across the cable car, I noticed one grizzly old local with a beard and long hair pouring out of his dirty beanie, fat skis leaning against his shoulder. We made eye contact, smiled, and gave each other a nod of recognition.
The magnificent Bernina Massif from Corvastch ski area, St. Moritz.
The rest of the day, I skied the bowls, faces, and couloirs of Corvatsch, testing snow stability and “sampling” the powder. With fantastic lift access to backcountry terrain, I didn’t put skins on all day. Add Corvatsch to your bucket list if you’re a serious powder skier.
Corvatsch is a freeride paradise of bowls, faces, and chutes.
Towards the end of the day, I checked the bus schedule to see when I had to catch my ride back to Pontresina. But I had another option to get home: skiing off the backside of Corvatsch and into Val Roseg, below the towering peaks of the Bernina massif. Skiing five minutes away from the lifts and then using a fixed rope to down-climb a rocky section, I found myself all alone in a remote valley that would bring me far away base of the resort. I dropped in, finding turn after turn of perfect powder with massive glaciers and peaks all around me. It was one of the most memorable runs of my life! After skating out a nordic track for ten minutes, I skitched a ride on the back of a horse-drawn sleigh down to Pontresina. Below is a video recap of the insanely beautiful run into Val Roseg.
The next morning, I met my guests for the week and together we took a 15-minute train ride to Diavolezza. This “resort” is more like a single tram with one groomed slope leading from the top to the base. Everything else is off-piste and wild. From the top of the tram, the views of Piz Palu and Piz Bernina are incredible! We skied the chutes and bowls of Diavolezza all day long, with nobody else around.
At the top of the Diavolezza cable car, with Piz Palu and Piz Bernina behind.
Of course, no day in the Alps is complete without an après-ski cocktail, so we found the deck of a local bar and sipped Aperol Spritz while we recounted stories from the day. We dined at a fantastic Italian restaurant in Pontresina that evening.
If you like powder skiing in beautiful places, the Engadin Valley might be for you!
The next morning, we had bigger plans. After breakfast, we packed our touring packs, and sent the rest of our luggage by train to the town of Bergün. We made our way by bus to St. Moritz, then rode the lifts to the top, dropping off the backside into a remote valley. A two-hour skin ascent to a high pass was followed by a 3,000-foot powder descent into the Val Bever. A final skin ascent brought us to our hut for the night, the cozy timber-framed Chamanna Jenatsch.
Skinning away from St. Moritz on the way to Chamanna Jenatsch.
After a beer and fried potato Rösti on the porch watching the alpenglow on the surrounding peaks, a four-course dinner of soup, salad, pasta, and dessert was served in the dining room. We settled into our private double rooms for the night.
Celebration beer and sunbathing on the porch of Chamanna Jenatsch.
Chamanna Jenatsch is surrounded by great ski touring, so the next morning, we left our overnight gear at the hut and donned skins for the long ascent of the Calderas Glacier to the summit of Tschima da Flix. After three hours of switchbacking and traversing, we crested the final summit slopes and took a break on top. Surrounded by the peaks of eastern Switzerland, we could see all the way into Austria to the east and Monte Rosa near Zermatt to the west.
Looking across the Swiss Alps from high in the Albula range.
After summit photos and sunbathing, we clicked into our skis and dropped in, enjoying a glacier covered in powder on the way down. Arriving at the hut in the middle of a sunny afternoon, we quickly ordered beers and relaxed on the sundeck, enjoying the late afternoon warmth. As a final treat, the hut staff fired up the sauna before dinner.
In the morning, we said goodbye to the Chamanna Jenatsch and ski toured over a high pass, continuing on towards Davos on the other side of the Albula range. Skiing bowls and chutes on the way down, we eventually emerged into snowy meadows and skied between summer farm huts and pastures. A final luge track down a forest trail brought us to the village of Naz. Here, we could catch the train, but instead opted to ski down the famed toboggan run all the way to our destination for the night, the sleepy Romansch hamlet of Bergün.
Skiing the toboggan run down the valley to Bergün after a long day of touring.
Even before skiing was introduced in the Alps, winter visitors had used trains and horse-drawn carriages to reach high valleys before sledding back down to town. Now, a groomed toboggan trail winds its way down the valley through the famous viaducts and tunnels of the Rhaetian railway, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We even skied underneath a viaduct while a train was crossing above us!
We made it to town in time for an après-ski drink and a walk through this quaint old village, not to mention a spa session at the Kurhaus Bergün. This historic Art Nouveau hotel was constructed in the late 1800s and is one of the most distinct hotels in Switzerland. It offers comfortable accommodation and a fantastic dinner, and just happens to be on the ski route from St. Moritz to Davos. Our luggage was waiting for us when we arrived!
The Kurhaus Bergün is charming and comfortable, just like the rest of the Albula region.
The next morning it dawned stormy and snowy. The original plan was to ride chairlifts from Bergün then ski to another high mountain hut, completing the traverse to Davos the next day. However, this wouldn’t be possible in bad weather, so we had a backup plan. A taxi ride from Bergün to Davos was ordered, which transported us around the storm and into Davos by mid-morning. We dropped our luggage at the hotel and headed to Parsenn for a day of lift-accessed backcountry skiing.
Davos, famous for hosting the World Economic Forum each January, is actually not a high-end resort town, to the surprise of many. However, it does boast plenty of comfortable accommodation and incredible lift-accessed backcountry skiing. Davos is one of my favorite places to ski in the Alps, and consistently has some of the best snow in Europe.
Untracked powder in Davos… it’s pretty much always like that!
After riding a funicular train, chairlift, and a cable car, we arrived at the top of the resort. The backside of this peak offers perfect north-facing backcountry bowls and chutes with nobody around. Our first lap, we skied a wide-open powder bowl, before skinning back to the chairlift. Our second lap, we spied an untracked chute that led to a wide-open apron, smiling as we made powder turns for 1,500 vertical feet. At the end of the day, we skied south-facing corn back to Davos where we enjoyed an après cocktail and dined on local delicacies in the cellar of an old Romansch building.
The canton of Graubunden, home of the Albula traverse, has some of the best food and unique architecture in Switzerland.
The Davos valley has five ski resorts, each with great backcountry access. So on our final day, we decided to check out a different zone. We rode the trams of Jakobshorn to the summit, and skied some chutes to warm up the day. Then, we skinned about 45 minutes to the summit of a nearby peak. We had seen an untracked bowl from the top of the tram, amazed that nobody had skied it yet.
Jakobshorn, one of five ski areas in Davos.
Even as we set the skin track, nobody else seemed interested in what we were up to. After a lunch break on the summit, we skied pitch after pitch of steep, open powder into the valley below, in plain view of everyone at the resort. We couldn’t believe our luck— in Jackson Hole, this face would have been a bump run by 10 AM. A beer at the farm stand in the village below was a great way to end the trip.
Endless untracked backcountry terrain near Jakobshorn.
The Albula traverse offers the same town-to-town experience of other hut trips in the Alps, with all of the scenery and none of the crowds. Plus, there are tons of lift-accessed backcountry options for those who don’t want to skin as much. This region has it all, and I’ll return again and again. Thanks for a great trip, team!
