St Moritz is one of Switzerland’s biggest ski destinations. In the photo above, its lake is the second closest and the town lies on the right and far flanks of the lake. Its sister city in the USA is Vail, but both Mrs Bear and myself likened it more to Aspen. The town reaked of money and people who wanted to be seen.
Another impression was that most activities like skiing are done outside of town rather than in it. We climbed up into the higher mountains for views and had to take trains and buses to get there.
Our day started at the train station boarding an open-air car for a ride back up the grade to the glacier we saw on the way in yesterday. As we were set to board, we spied our cubs who really like the lakes … they had elected to paddle board and kyack instead of coming along with us.
The temperatures have been around 90 Fahrenheit so the convertible car was very comfortable. The only drag was sitting near parents with small children, who have to talk and do so loudly because they don’t know if they can be heard over the sounds of wheels on rails.
Our ride whisked us up to 10,000 feet, and we were face-to-face with the Morteratsch Glacier.
We walked around the observation area noticing that parts of the glacier closest to human contact had been covered to block direct sunlight. We took the tram back down and got back on the train.
A couple of interesting facts about train travel in Switzerland: the average citizen travels over 200 km by train each year. This is the highest total in the world !! AND Switzerland has the highest concentration of train tracks in the world. It is a major way of life here. Finally the Swiss trains are always on time.
We got off about halfway back to St Moritz and traveled up another mountain by funicular.
The draw of this climb to somewhere around 7,000 feet were the views of St Moritz.
I found a great seat and waited for Mrs Bear to finish her walkabout. Many hikers ride up these lifts and go out on a network of trails in the high mountains. It looked like a hiker could take on anything between a half mile and 10+ miles. Mrs Bear fondly states that this is Switzerland … the locals walk. I waited for Mrs Bear with half a soda and asked her to snap a pic:
We rode back down the mountain and back into town … No Cubs. I texted them and invited them to join me in the bar. They responded that they were already there !! Their bar was up a combination of funicular and chairlift of yet another mountain …
One last image to leave you with. We took the Glacier Express to Zermatt today. I am always one day behind in writing these posts. But I’ll end with a preview of the posts to come !!
The Adventures of Barry Brink 