A train and ski geek goes off piste in remote Switzerland
How the magnificent Graubünden region – and Gay Ski Week – leaves a train nerd fabulously happy
I’m changing trains on a busy Sunday afternoon at Zürich Hauptbahnhof, and it seems as though every other passenger is toting skis and rucksack, some clumping round in ski boots, others with their boots dangling off their pack. But no one is getting poked in the eye with skis and everyone finds space to store their gear without blocking the aisles.
I’m one of their number, returning from a trip to some of the lesser-known ski resorts of the magnificent Graubünden region, in the far southeast of Switzerland. As a bit of a train geek and a lot of a ski geek, I wanted to see how feasible it was to do a “road trip” by train around Switzerland, which has some of the most efficient and scenic rail routes in the world along with infrastructure designed for skiers, even having stations on the slopes – ski off/ski on, as it were ...
My first stop is Disentis. I’ve travelled from Geneva, first on an impressive high-speed, double-decker Inter-City train, and then, as we hit the mountains, aboard the bright red, metre-gauge Rhaetian Rail (RhB) service, which operates in terrain better suited to goats and mountain bikes than locomotives. The immaculately kept interiors of Rhaetian trains are warm, functional and offer wide, comfortable seats and large windows through which to view the spectacular scenery.
Disentis is a small (ten lifts) resort that caters for families, with quiet, open pistes, and for freeriders, with quiet, open backcountry, all set beneath craggy 3,000-metre peaks. The town is traditionally Swiss – neat, well-kept, relatively quiet even at the height of the ski season – so much so that my loquacious guide, Adi Schürmann, tells me, “The area is known as ‘the jungle’ because we’re a bit off the beaten track.”
Schürmann and I spend an entire Tuesday in late January skiing off-piste in solitude down the Val Gronda, Val Acletta and Val Segnas, three lovely valleys that snake from open alpine landscapes, through shrubs and forests, to the main cable car station, back in town. Each descent is an impressive, muscle-burning 1,600 vertical metres.
