timbre: July 2011

I've heard all the names... Piz Bernina, Piz Palü... so many times, the Engadin had taken on a mythical dimension in my mind. It's a region of high alpine valleys in a corner of Switzerland on the border with Italy, far from the big cities. I had also been oggling many bike tours around there since I began dreaming of one day having my own mountain bike. So, off we went - to St. Moritz via the stunning world heritage railway and then on to Silvaplana where we set up our tent on the lake shore. Our first day we explored the via Engadina trail just above the camp (which was a little over our head) and continued on to Val Fex - a peaceful valley far away from the glitz of St. Moritz and the valley traffic. The restoration of the old summer farm houses was beautiful.

The second day we biked up to Suvrettapass, a classic mountain bike tour in these parts. The first bit is 1000 meters of uphill on gravel roads that service the ski resort, probably my least favorite place to be in the mountains in July. But, it makes the climbing easier and spits you out on a really amazing high-alpine singletrack - at almost 2700 meters it's starting to approach real mountains and it feels a bit funny at first to be there on a bike. But this is what I had imagined mountain biking to be for me - ski touring in the summer. We finally got a little taste of what that's like. Our track on gps-tracks.com.

via Engadina: