Ski tour up to Glattwang, by fair means and by an even better descent

The weather during the week has been not very good, but in terms of new snow there was up to half a meter in some regions. And with the sun shining the whole day on Saturday how could you expect anyone to stay at home? Unfortunately the avalanche risk is rather high and a safe route has to be chosen. Also, being quite warm, we need to try and find something that is constantly north facing to hope and get some good snow. Looking around on skitourenguru we come across the Glattwang, starting from Jenaz. 1700m in total of ascent, never steeper than 30° and always facing north...perfect!

From the train station is a bit misleading to follow the signs to Glattwang, since that is the summer route. Much better instead is to aim straight out of town above Garaia and then to cut through the woods, on the footpath, direction Prafieb. From here onwards the route basically follows all the little barns and houses along the gaps in the trees, without having to actually go through the forest.

Looking at the south side

In the morning the impression was that it would have been an icy ski down, but instead we realize that there is a quite good amount of fresh snow, and it gets better and better the more we go higher. We get up to Obersäss and here it finally starts to be a little bit more fresh...yes because up to now it was rather hot! Not that we were complaining about that, since it was an almost perfect day...but we could have thought about that and put the light thermal underwear on!

That sun is shining!

Perfection...

On the final part to the beginning of the ridge the view start to open all around the summits of this part of Graubünden...even though I have to admit I don't know this region very well and is hard to recognise any summit, except for the one above the ski resort of Klosters. Once we finally reach the ridge we immediately see an higher summit just beyond what we thought was the summit! Looking at the map it seems that the ski tour summit should be the one we stand on, but the "real" Glattwang is standing right in front of us, further along the ridge...almost looking down on us. 

That is the real summit...so why are we still here??

Well, we came so far, let's go a bit further! In a few minutes we are at the ski depot under the last narrow part of the ridge and we walk up the last few meters until the cross with the name Glattwang on it. This time we are on the real summit! And guess what, there is even a sign post on the summit. Seriously?? 

At the beginning we thought we were completely alone for the day, but now we see other people going up. Even though those lazy guys have skinned up only from Berghaus Arflina, which is at the bottom of the valley just below us. There is a small ski resort there, and I promise to myself that I will remember about this ski resort in the future...looks quite good for off pisting. So not only those guys walked up a fourth of what we did, but they even don't get up to the real summit and stop on the pre-summit which we just crossed. Anyway, everyone is different and it's good that way!
Anyway, that's why I said this ski tour was by fair means...because we climbed up from the lowest possible point in the valley :)

Further along the ridge

One of the lifts and a couple of runs of the ski resort

Yes...that is a sign post on the summit! Only in Switzerland...

After some photos and some food we take the skins finally off after 4 hours of constant ascent and start skiing down. At the beginning the ridge is a bit icy and very wind blown...but that is quite typical on a ridge to be honest. Then we start enjoying one of the best snow I can remember this season. Really soft and easy to turn. Even lower down across the gaps in the woods is not that bad, but it's easy to feel that the amount of fresh snow is slowly decreasing and the skis are more and more in contact with the hard bottom layer. Until the final gap in the woods where even snowplowing is tough and afterwards the snow is so wet that is like have the handbrake on! 

The last hundred (or a bit more) meters...skiing down into spring

In 1h 30m we get back down to the train station, in what feels like the end of May! Perfect time for an ice cream!