After the epic powder of last Sunday I wanted more this weekend. Unfortunately the new snow that fell in the lowlands during the week didn’t really seem to have led to much snow in the mountains. After checking the snow reports and avalanche risk on Friday it seemed like the Lenzerheide, Arosa, Tschiertshen round-tour was an option. Once again I made the usual phone calls and gathered the troops.
We were on top of Rothorn at 10am on Saturday morning ready to get going. A short traverse to our first drop in point. Both times I had been here before there had only been a handful of tracks down in front of us. This time it was quite tracked out already. We could already see from there that the snow had been through at least one thaw and re-freeze cycle and dropping in confirmed this. In places there was a refreeze crust on the surface which managed to cause a few interesting crashes. There was definitely less snow in this valley then there had been last season. There were a lot more rocks showing and a few just under the surface which ended up leading to some ski damage in our group.
On the way to Arosa looking back up the valley towards the ski area of Lenzerheide.
Looking the other way down the valley.
I was expecting the snow to be slightly better on the leg from Arosa to Tschiertschen as it is a north facing slope. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, the snow was really hard at the top but was a little better once we got a bit further down towards Tschiertschen.
Through the trees on the way to Tschiertschen.
The last times I had done this tour we returned to Lenzerheide over Churerjoch which involves quite a bit of skating to get back to the lift at Parpan. This time we decided to try the Gurgeletsch option which involves hiking uphill for 15 minutes from the highest point in Tschiertschen and then traversing to a saddle where we can see the whole way down to Churwalden. This route is considerably steeper then the route from Churerjoch and in good snow conditions would be an absolutely amazing ride. Once down through Gurgeletsch we started to traverse south to get back into the ski area of Lenzerheide.
After lunch we decided to take the cable-car back up to Rothorn to do the run down past Alp Sanaspans. During the summer this is one of my favourite bike trails in the region and I had wanted to do it in winter for a while. It was really cool to visit this valley in winter and can’t wait to go back again when there is good powder.
This tour always reminds me of the power of the mountains. The areas between these three resorts are not controlled. Every time I have been back there there has been recent avalanche activity. Do not attempt this tour without the necessary safety equipment and taking account of the current avalanche report.
Note: The images in this blog were taken on the same tour last year. This time round the weather was just as perfect but the snow conditions were a handful so we concentrated on getting around the tour quickly to avoid being on the steep sections in the afternoon (risk of wet snow avalanches) rather then taking pictures.
