Preda to Bregaglia - Graubünden high hike

A beautiful 5 day walk across Graubünden finishing in the wild and beautiful Bregaglia.

Day 1 - Train journey to Preda. This is a journey in itself, the lovely Rhätische Bahn trains wind up to the top of the Albula Pass where you get out into instant natural beauty. From here it's a simple walk pass mirror clear lakes out of the treeline and over the easy Fuorcla Crap Alv. We had misty, cold, wet clouds blowing in so we raced down into Val Bever, a sheltered and charming valley with a steady meandering climb up toward Cna Jenatsch. We got talking to a local farmer who let us sleep in one of his barns out of the rain. Nice if you have the chance. He was happy to complain to us in broken english that the rich hunters were killing his business. 

Day 2 - In the morning we trudged further up the valley to Cna Jenatsch, not the friendliest staff but nice enough for a coffee in an amazing location. From here you wind around rocky scree slopes where we saw our first Steinbock :) there is a large lake on your way up to Fuorcla D' Agnel. It was horizontal snow for us up there so we huddled under a cold rock and rapidly devoured our days ration of junk food. As we walked down toward Julierpass we saw many more Gems and Steinbock. We walked over the highway and up the other side and found the most perfect campsite on the shores of lake Grevasalvas, really couldn't be a more picturesque spot to spend a night, surrounded by mountains, not too high, not too low, a bit of grass and a big clean lake :)

Day 3 - scrabble up through loose rock to Fuorcla Grevasalvas, stopping to uncover old army bunkers and hunting hides. Lots of photos at the top looking accross to the Bregaglia group and the long winding glaciers at the Italian border. Down this southern side is a vastly different world with sun, grass, flowers descending into little villages above Silverplana. We hurried through Maloja, had a Gelato and found a campsite by the power station spill way. (certain death lols)  

Day 4 - A early start had us charging up the valley before sunrise for breakfast at the foot of Forno glacier. Now from here it certainly gets a little more hairy. Navigating the glacier is not so straightforward or marked and the climb up out of the rapidly meting ice field is pretty dodgy. There are ropes hanging down but you just kinda scramble up and say your Hail Marys. It a long and sun exposed climb surrounded by nothing by rock rock rock. All the same rock as well, just grey, hard, sharp, constantly falling rock. The pass is epic and well worth the slog, with views in al directions and no sense of being in anyway connected to the modern world.
Run down to the Cap D L'Albigna and lie in the sun :) we walked down toward the lake for an even more amazing camping spot. I have to say the huts are way to expensive for non swiss visitors and not so nice when compared to camping so naturally we took a tent and camped all nights, I understand that if everyone did this it could be a problem, but most people don't seem interested in carry tents. 

Day 5 - From here you can continue on to the next blue routes which look amazing but my friend was feeling lazy so we walked down to eat more gelato. 

till next time. 

:)