Grialetsch Hut

On the weekend a group of friends went hiking again in the Davos region. This time our goal was the Grialetsch hut but first we started up Schwarzhorn (black horn). On the way up we saw an ibex standing on the peak next to us. It was pretty neat to see and good thing I had a long zoom to take the picture.
We watched the ibex for a while as a hiker approached. Then he went running down a cliff face! It was amazing to see how good it could maneuver in the mountains.

The top of the Schwarzhorn was easy to get to but a little sketchy, lots of loose rock. We were really high up, over 3000m. This peak is the highest one in the region and there were many hikers on top.

And after we left the peak we continued around along a scree slope below a glacier and made our way up to the pass to cross into the valley behind where the hut was located. We stopped to have a magnificant view and take our picture.

And then we continued on to traverse the valley. I started on the trail and noticed the signs were really high, so I figured it was the winter trail and probably pretty rough for hikers. We dropped down a bit into the valley and continued on another hiking trail. This one may have been not as rough as the top one, but there was still a lot of climbing over boulder fields. We were lucky though, the boys took the top route and it sounded like the rougher trail.

The hut itself was located at the end of the valley on a small lake and was rather hidden until we took the last turn.

Before dinner was served we sat around on the lake and chatted and enjoyed the sunshine. We scared a marmot and it sat on top of his rock and chirped at us for quite a while.

And though it got cold throughout the evening I took some pretty nice pictures of the sunset.

The next morning before we headed out we went climbing up to the base of the glacier. Throughout the rock field we had to be careful to not step on casings from the military which had been firing in the area.

At the base of the glacier was a tunnel that had been carved by water flowing from higher up.

Standing at the entrance we could take some pretty nice pictures of the ice.

I liked that you could see streaks, clear blue ice cutting through all the white.

Also what was interesting to see was a big medial moraine.

Then we headed back down into Davos and had pizza for a late lunch/early supper which I call Lupper. It was a fantastic weekend, we had great weather and lots of sunshine (including the sunburns to go with it). The hut for the night was pretty full and our room had a bunch of loud snorers. I have been listening to a lot of Richard Pogge astronomy lectures which were interesting enough to keep my mind off the snoring and finally let myself fall to sleep.