Klosters to Chur

Great forecast for this weekend, with a chance of showers on Sunday afternoon but otherwise clear, so we opt for a trip with the bivvy bags. 

We take the early train to Klosters Platz, get the gondola up to the Gotschnagrat, and then start out along the red-white path under a lovely blue sky. Up and over the Casanna we go, down to the Parsennfurgga, past the lovely (and popular!) Grüensee, and along the very nice path (lots of wood walkways) through the moor landscape towards the Strassberger Fürggli. Along the way there we stop for a food break and enjoy the nice weather and views.

From the pass we continue along the ridge along a path which is newly marked, not on the map, and not frequently followed. This leads us under and around p.2430, then we kind of lose it and end up traversing a big patch of stinging nettle (yay) before redoing the ridge and heading to the Mattjisch Horn. Here another food break to enjoy the fantastic views and then we continue along to the Arflinafurgga and then to the Faninpass. We’re expecting to have improvise again here, but it turns out that there are old trail markers along the way we’re planning to go; easy progress! Onward along the ridge we go.

It’s time to start thinking about water, so we head off the ridge below the Dängelstöck with the idea of traversing to the Guotiger Brunnen spring indicated on the map. Fortunately, there’s a trough with a pipe we can access at the start of the spring just below Furgglis and we can get water there. After drinking our fill and pumping a couple of liters, we head back up to the ridge and continue past the Dängelstöck. Onwards along the ridge we encounter a herd of horses (very unusual) and take another break to appreciate the views before heading up and across the Ratoser Stein (which we’ve been calling "Ratloser Stein" all day). Down the other side and now we can see the Hochwang, which is our current planned stopping point. Up, up the last bit to the peak, some scouting around to find a good place to sleep, and we ditch the gear. 

The next step is collecting water; we take Andrea’s empty backpack and the bottles back down, down to the beginning of the valley under the ridge and find a good pool to pump from where the path crosses a stream. 6 liters of pumping later and we carry the water back up to our campsite. After getting a bit of setup done we head up to the peak to make dinner.  Surprisingly, a couple shows up as we're making dinner; they've come up just for the sunset. It’s a bit windy but the views are fantastic and we enjoy dinner with views and then a bit of a post-dinner stroll around the peak before heading to bed and appreciating the (mostly) full moon rising and moving in and out of the clouds.

Clouds move in overnight and it's pretty clear when we wake up that the planned continuation of the ridge wouldn't be a great idea. By the time we're done with breakfast we are basically in a cloud and it's starting to lightly rain. On with the rain gear and down we go. Down past where we pumped water, down, down into the valley towards Triemel. Along the way the rain stops... yay. At Triemel we opt to stay up reasonably high and traverse on the path to Bargun, then it's down, down to Castiel. Here we do a food break at a nicely situated picnic table above down, then continue along the road (unfortunately) to Calfreisen. Next it's up a bit more, around, and then down, down to Maladers. From there it's easy and efficient down to Chur, where we arrive with time to grab a beverage before getting the direct train back to Basel.

Day two wasn't what we planned, but it was a nice day of hiking. We'll have to go back and do the planned route for day 2... it looked pretty good! :-)

Track:

Stats:

• Day 1: 8:20, 22.2km, 1330m up, 1100m down
• Day 2: 5:00, 19.3km, 130m up, 2000m down