Hiking at Schlappin

It has been warm-ish and sunny around Klosters and on the weekend a few of my friends and I got together for a day hike. I've been a real slug the past month, always having more work to do around the house and not getting out into the wild. So this weekend we headed up the road to the small village of Schlappin (which in the winter you can reach by skis) and from there we walked up the long valley parallel to the Klosters valley.

We had wonderful weather and first we started on the road. It was maybe about 7km to the hut near the end when we stopped for lunch.

We had great views down the valley and only a few farms were visible. All the cows were gone now to the lower parts of the valley for the winter.

At the end of this valley you could see the high mountains that are behind Klosters, there is even a glacier back there. We decided in the end to not extend the trip by going behind the peaks to a lake.

On the way back we took the small trail marked on our maps as not an official SAC hiking trail. At some point it had been because we could see the occasional red and white markings. However, sometimes it was a broad trail with lots of water running down, other times we were fighting through rocks and grass and lots of blueberry bushes with a long drop below us and poor footing. This picture by the way was from when the trail was very clear and not very steep.

It took us many hours to get back along this high trail, although it was clearly used by deer and other animals (lots of poop on the trail, and lots of animal footprints in the snow). We even at some points saw two sets of hiking boots, but sometimes we just had no idea where the other walkers were.

We got back quite tired, but all in all a nice day for a hike.