This was my first major alpine hike in the Swiss alps and also my first ascent of a 3000m peak in the swiss alps. There were five others on this three day excursion: Tanja (trip leader), Quentin, Olin, Nikki and Samuel.

Palpuognasee, near the Preda, Switzerland.

Preda to Chamanna d’Es-cha

The first day’s hike started at 9:45am in Preda. The first point of interest on our way up the valley was the Palpuognasee. Most of the early walking was more or less up the valley, sometimes close to the road, sometimes traversing up the sides of the valley to afford some early views.

Eventually our path took a decisive turn to climb north out of the valley and up over to Chamanna d’Es-cha. This was my first introduction to a swiss mountain hut, and the day’s hiking was complete at about 2:40pm.

Chamanna d’Es-cha to Kesch-Hütte

The second day was a long excursion west through a pass with Piz Blaisun (3200m) to the south, before curving north and then back east to the Kesch-Hütte (2625m). We left Chamanna d’Es-cha at around 8:40am and we had arrived at the pass below Piz Blaisun by 10:20am. Although our day plan had not included it, we decided that we would take in the peak of Piz Blaisun as well. It didn’t look too far from the saddle of the pass, so we left our packs at the saddle. Luckily for us our legs were very fresh since it turned out to be about 500m vertical climb which we did in less than an hour and I was standing on the peak by 11:08am :)

Partially because of the nearly 2hr sidetrack the second day was a much longer affair than the first one. We were back down off Piz Blaisun by 11:50am, and after hiking for another couple of hours (including another brief sidetrack chasing some ibex up a ridge) we had a late lunch on the slopes above Ava da plazbi.

After lunch the hike continued down the valley along the ava da plazbi and we arrived at Alp Plazbi (2069m) at about 3:35pm. The sign informed us there was still 2.5 hours to hike to get to the Kesch-Hütte. We completed the last section of the walk north and then ascending east to the hut in just over 2 hours, arriving at Kesch-Hütte at 5:45pm.

Kesch-Hütte to Sertig-Dorfli

We woke on the final day to find there had been quite a lot of snowfall overnight. The surroundings of Kesch-Hütte had been turned into a white wonderland. We left before 8am in the morning. I was very excited and the climb up to the Sertigpass did not disappoint!

Tanja and Quentin nearing Sertigpass with the Lai da Ravais-ch in the background.

Once over Sertigpass the going was very easy but there was still snow all the way down to Gruensee (2197m). Shortly after that we passed below the snow line at about 10:40am and we arrived at the first bus stop at Sertig, Sand by 11:20am. However we decided to continue walking down to Sertig Dorfli where I was delighted to be introduced to the “Trotti Bike”, a large mountain scooter with bike tires that is used in many alpine villages as a fun alternative method of transport down into the bigger towns. From Sertig Dorgli we raced our Trotti bikes all the way down to Davos where we finished the third day of our hike just after noon.