Discover the Engadine with a Cicerone guidebook

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps
• Updates
• Reviews
• Further Reading

Lying in the southeastern corner of Switzerland, the Engadine Valley forms a trench almost 100km long. In it, and on hillsides that flank it, there’s something for every walker’s taste: gentle valley rambles for a family outing; craggy mid-mountain walks for the more adventurous; high-level routes that lead across glacier, snowfield and rugged passes for the experienced mountain trekker.

Walks in the Engadine contains detailed route descriptions for 100 day walk routes that vary from 2 to 10 miles in length and that take the walker into secretive inner glens and onto remote alp pastures by-passed by the 21st century. The route cover a variety of terrain from luscious meadows and craggy mountains to glaciers and snowpeaks.

Engadine is a high valley, a valley of contrasts. In the Upper Engadine between Maloja and St Moritz, several large lakes almost fill the valley floor at an altitude of around 1800m while the snow-peaks of the Bernia Alps rise nearby. Shapely mountains like Piz Palü, Bellavista, Piz Roseg and Piz Bernia spawn glaciers that hang like frozen cascades, or spill into side valleys among lengthy walls of moraine. In the Lower Engadine, which runs northeastward and gradually loses altitude between Chinos-chel and Martina, the valley narrows. In places the River Inn squeezes through tight gorges, wild and foaming in cataracts as a fine white-water river.

However, this guidebook is not limited to the Engadine, there are routes in some of its neighbouring valleys too, for each one broadens the walker’s opportunities and adds to the scenic dimension. In the south, for example, at the Engadine’s head where the lake of Sils gives way to meadows around the village of Maloja, a sudden drop over the valley’s lip shows the Maloja Pass writhing its way with countless hairpins into a deep shaft of a valley filled with soft air and warmth of Italy.

Most of the walks described in this guidebook have been chosen with a particular viewpoint, lake, alp hamlet, hut or pass as the destination, while the principal objective of each walk is to enjoy a day’s exercise among stimulating scenery. In order to gain the most from a walking holiday, one needs to be in reasonably good physical condition on arrival.

The walks have been graded into three numerical categories, with the highest grade reserved for the more challenging routes. This grading system is purely subjective and open to argument, but is offered as a rough guide of what to expect. Moderate walks (Grade 1) should appeal to most active members of the family, while the majority of walks are graded 2 or 3, largely as a result of the very nature of the landscape, which can be quite challenging. Most of the paths followed are well maintained, waymarked and signed at junctions with typical Swiss efficiency.