St. Moritz-Zermatt, part 1: Alpenpässe Weg

In late summer 2024, I hiked from St. Moritz to Zermatt along the Swiss/Italian Alps. This is a record of the first week, when I walked along the Alpenpässe-Weg route (not the whole of it)

The early morning train ride from Zurich to St. Moritz is relaxing and scenic but I get increasingly restless as it gets close to destination. I need to start hiking and I do so from the train station, along the odd glamour of the luxury hotels and the occasional oversized limo and with a mandatory stop at an outdoor store to get a butane canister. Then I’m good to go.

The well-signed route emerges from the woods onto grassy slopes riddled with ski infrastructure so I don’t have to go headlong into the wilderness.

I’ve drawn the route for about the first week of hiking entirely over route number 6 in the Swiss system, namely the Alpenpässe-Weg, bearing its own sticker in pretty much every signpost.

Past the top of the lifts and its awkwardly big buildings, the trail enters a high valley and heads for the first pass of the trip. The scenery gets truly alpine.

Fuorcla Schlattain is 2873 m high but it still has a front-country feeling due to the wide track access and the hordes of MTB riders. It’s not until the following climb that I get into truly alpine terrain on a steep, rocky ascent to 2966 Fuorcla Suvretta. The view onwards shows no infrastructure other than the trail.

The route here goes deep into the mountain group west of St. Moritz, down just enough to go around a secondary peak, then up again on a gradual approach to Fourcla d’Agnel along glacial headwaters.

The pass misses the 3K mark for 7 m but I’m not even tempted to do a side climb for the figure, it’s getting late and I still need to go down enough to find flat ground.

About two km ahead and 400 m lower, grass starts winning over rock and I can pitch before it gets dark. It’ll be the highest camp of the trip.

Next morning is calm and clear and my mid stands tight, somehow impersonating the surrounding peaks.

There’s a trail down the valley but my route takes a relatively short uphill instead, over a minor pass to exit this mountain group onto the flanks of Val Surses, the next main valley to the west.

The route stays high over the main valley floor while going down enough to meet the grass and a flat area with road access, Alp Flix.

Most of the buildings here seem to stick to cattle activities but there’s also a lodge and pub. I’d hardly ever eat cake any other time but thru-hiking is that time when I expand my eating horizons. A deck with a view.

I took two portions and it won’t be the last time.

From Alp Flix, it’d be possible to keep a mostly level and straight course but the Alpenpässe-Weg climbs high instead for a longer and more interesting course before going down the the main valley floor. On the way, clouds gather as from nowhere and I get rained on from the first time on the trip but the sun shines again shortly after. The trail enters the woods for a while.

The route crosses the Surses valley in Savognin town. I get there with a couple of hours left before dark and the aim of keeping going enough to get away from the inhabited areas but just as I’m crossing town the rain returns. It gets quite stormy. I ponder my options from under cover and realize how difficult it is to get out in the rain when most of the day’s work is already over.

Waiting the rain eventually means I decide to stay in town for the night. At least, the place is very quiet in the off-season.

The following morning is hazy but dry overhead. I cross the bridge over the Gelgia, which flows north to feed the Rhine.

It takes me about two hours to get out of the valley floor and onto the alpine areas en route to Pass da Schmorras, a nice climb once the dirt roads are behind.

It’s sunny as I go across the pass but, more than the sky, the only clear thing is that the stormy pattern is still on and the vibe turns to grey as I quickly make my way down to the next westward valley. It starts raining a short while before I make it to Ausserferrera, a small village in the namesake Val Ferrera, where I find a good overhang to wait the worst of the storm while I have my lunch.

I like this mix of German and Italian in the place names. There’s also an Innerferrera further up the valley.

It rains rather heavy for a while but the forecast says it will stop later so I plan to keep going. It was a steep, sweaty climb out of the valley floor through the woods to get beyond the tree line to views of 3K high Piz Grisch across the valley.

There’s no pass ahead but a sidehill before going down a different fork of the same watershed. I had expected to cruise through this section but the trail is rocky and rough and progress is slow. I feel highly relieved when I eventually hit a good trail on the climb down to Rheinwald, which appears to be the main branch feeding the Rhine, the headwaters just up the valley.

Down in the valley floor, Route 6 takes me straight through Splügen town. Technically, I could keep going past it, up the hill on the opposite side to a high camp, all before dark, but I feel so worn out that I don’t even consider that option. There’s a campground in town and I’m happy with that. In fact, I’m so tired that I throw a melancholic look to the swiss-style, cozy looking hotel in the heart of town as I go along, basically because it’d save me the half mile walk to the campground that I’ll need to undo the following morning but also because I feel too tired to be outside, even if it’s not raining neither particularly cold.

Fear not, I have no doubts about my place in the world. I’m happy being a hiker and setting up my tent at the end of the day, even in a town-side campground. Cozy hotels, though not out of the question, are a reward that I need to get credit for. The mid will be up for the night.

Morning day 4 is gloomy once again, along with my mood and I need to concentrate on the basic task of hiking. I climb the hillside through woods and meadows with views back down to Splügen and the Rheinwald.

Once out of the valley floor and past the last alp compound, it’s a short and easy climb to Safierberg, a saddle giving way to the Safiental, a valley draining straight north. Some impressive rock walls siding the pass.

Once in the valley floor, the route soon meets a dirt road and some chalets, turning suburban for a good while, including a nice pub on the way where I do a short lunch stop, if only to honor the alpine experience.

Shortly after, the Alpenpässe-Weg starts an upwards sidehill that goes on for many miles while offering nice views all the way back to Safierberg.

It’s all grass, no rock en route to the Güner Lückli, a low point on the divide between the Safiental and Val Lumnezia or germanic to latin in a single pass without leaving Switzerland. The clouds break for about the first time in the day as I go past the first alp on the way down and I have the chance to meet shepherd and cows.

I stop for the day on a bench over the main valley and before getting down to the first village, hopefully well hidden from view. At this stage, I still don’t know about tolerance to wild camping off the high areas there is in this region.

Day 5 starts cloudy again. The following section is upstream along Val Lumnezia, rather suburban despite the stretch on the crest closing the valley to the north. It feels sweaty and not very epic and I’m not feeling particularly excited. Nice views as I come down to valley floor.

The valley floor has room for the Glogn, another of the Rhine headwater branches, a road and nothing else, all the villages are set in the flattest available areas of the hillsides. I need to cross onto the opposite side, then climb 1200 vertical m all the way to the crest. It’d be tempting to follow a lower level route up the valley to save some distance and almost 1K up and down m. In my sustained low mood, I need to lecture myself about the importance of keeping to the plan.

Part way along the climb, I go through Vella, a village big enough to have a supermarket that was my first planned resupply spot. I have been doing pub meals too often to deplete my food bags but I make sure that I replenish enough to get to the next on-trail store that I count on finding open. It’s good that there seems to always be some covered spot in the public areas because it starts raining as I have my lunch.

Vella feels rather touristy and, in early September, there doesn’t seem to be much going on. I resume the uphill with more resignation than enthusiasm.

There’s something enticing in getting up to the crest though, other than the obvious: this will be the northernmost spot in this route and the closest I’ll get to the course of my previous trip in the region so reaching this crest offers more than just another nice view. Across the valley to the north and behind the cloud covered peaks in the background lies the Via Alpina 1 section that I hiked a few years back.

I remember looking south into the other side of those same mountains some years back and wondering what it’d be behind them. I love this dot joining thing.

Going forward, there’s a nice crest section ahead whose highest point is the relatively modest Piz Sezner at 2309 m. It’ll be the only such top walk in this trip.

Past Piz Sezner, Route 6 comes back down to village level in Val Lumnezia. There’s rain in the forecast but the sky is at its brightest as I approach the hamlets at the end of the valley.

The trail leads to a final stretch of road near Vrin, the last sizeable village in Val Lumnezia, with a very interesting architecture and a vibe that feels very far from touristy.

Past Vrin, it’s only tiny hamlets Cons, Ligiazun, Sogn Giusep and Puzzatsch, once again the mix between German and Italian in the place names. I could probably keep hiking past them all and try to find something flat on the way to the headwaters but rain is upcoming and my energy levels are oddly low so I can’t pass the chance of a guesthouse that I had already spotted on the map and that had became my beacon through a difficult day. I stopped the hiking at half past 5 after 32 km and stayed indoors for the night again.

As I write this, I can’t help thinking “such an early stop, why didn’t I keep going?” and I feel such a wimp. I remember that, back at the time, stopping made all the sense. It was what I needed to do.

It did rain later in the evening, most likely during the night and the morning was far from welcoming, overcast, drizzly and with a grim forecast for the afternoon. It did help starting the climb to Pass Diesrut from a warm, dry environment.

The road keeps going for a while longer, all the way to the last hamlet, after which it turns to regular mountain trail following the stream all the way to the headwaters and the pass.

It’s an easy climb to Pass Diesrut, which reveals views southwest over Pianno della Greina, a beautiful highland flats area with meadows and a meandering stream. It’s good to stay high for a while after a pass and not go straight down into the urban areas. Shame about the weather but I enjoy this stretch greatly.

This area is very interesting geographically and an important milestone. Water here still flows north to the Rhine but it’s only a slight rise to the south that makes the divide, across which water drains south to the Po and the Adriatic. I love this stuff.

It takes me only a couple of additional km and another very minor climb to reach 2355 high Passo della Greina where I cross the divide, still without leaving Switzerland, at which time the rain resumes in earnest so I make it quick to Capanna Scaletta. It feels great to find a hut at the rightest of times.

It’s lunch time so I take a double course meal while I make plans for the rest of the day.

By the time I’d be ready to get out, it’s raining steady and the forecast is for non-stop, occasionally heavy rain for the rest of the day. This time, I decide to keep going, with the safety net of a small village 10 km down the hill and another hut after about 5 additional km on the climb to the following pass.

There are no pics for the next 3 h. Rain became intense on my way down and I concentrated on keeping sensible stuff dry. By the time I got to Campo Blenio village, I was beyond wet, feeling miserable, low on morale and rather pissed off with my poor performance. Defeat was quick and complete.

I got under cover in town, trying to get some rest and warmth but I only managed to get colder by staying put so I limited the break to relieving the weight off the back for a few minutes. While I considered trying to find accommodation in town, it wasn’t clear there’d be any and it didn’t look easy to find out, everything seemed closed, hardly anybody around. It was just 5 more km to the safe haven of the Capanna Bovarina. I just wanted the day to be over. I got back out.

I arrived in the hut by early evening. Only my pack contents were dry. At least, my pack contents were dry.

Capanna Bovarina is a nice, family run, cozy hut at the edge of the woods. No need to stress that literally anything would feel cozy, given the circumstances, but large huts are more impersonal and I’m glad this one is not. There is a generous size drying room, already packed with wet stuff from other guests and I take my time here to squeeze mine in.

It just feels so good to be inside when the outside is so unwelcoming.

The following morning, it’s still overcast with occasional drizzle but the forecast is for dry conditions later in the morning and throughout the day, how much I welcome this. I leave the hut towards Passo di Gana Negra still in the fog.

The cloud starts to break as I climb. This is highly uplifting.

The pass leads to a view of breaking clouds still clinging to valleys and peaks

I was too quick expecting a dry day though. It might still be so overhead but not necessarily underfoot or, in this case, roughly speaking under waist. As I come down to Valle Santa Maria, I enter the cloud again into a saturated environment where everything is dripping wet. The vegetation holds an insane amount of water. You wouldn’t get so wet from falling rain.

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The full soak is only knee down and it’d be anecdotal if it wasn’t for my failed expectations about being dry for a while.

On my way to Passo delle Columbe, I go past the lower clouds and the sun shines through again.

It’s a fairly easy pass on grassy terrain with a long, gradual descent westwards on a pretty wide track, which makes for quick progress all the way to Lago Ritóm, from where the trail turns into dirt road. Yet quicker progress.

Quick progress is welcome but the vibe is too far from any wilderness feeling for my liking. In hindsight, I should probably have taken an alternate in this area through higher and wilder Val Cadlimo but at the time of planning I didn’t notice the potential for meh.

Past Lago Ritóm, there’s the least attractive stretch of the whole trip. So it seemed at the time of planning but there was no way around it. I need to go down to and across main thoroughfare Valle Leventina and the transport hub that’s Airolo, the biggest town in my way. The valley floor is fully occupied by railway tracks and roads, including a 2 carriage motorway. Airolo itself is the access point to Gotthard Pass / Passo del San Gottardo, the main link across the Alpine divide in the region. The traffic noise is outstanding all the way along the hillside to Airolo.

I go pass as quick as possible and I feel relieved when I’m up the opposite hillside and Valle Leventina is only a view that will soon be left behind.

No time to get deep into the hills for a high camp but a woodland setting will do after my longest day of the trip.

Early the following morning, I’ll leave the Alpenpässe-Weg to head south into high mountain terrain and eventually across the border into Italy.