Enjoy beautiful alpine lakes and lofty views in the hiking paradise of Davos

Davos stands out as a elite alpine destination with its breathtaking scenery and majestic mountains. There is so much to experience and the mountain scenery is a dream! The small town in the mountains also has a lot to offer thanks to its good facilities. This makes Davos ideal for a longer stay.

I love test­ing out youth hos­tels and their sur­round­ing activ­i­ties. How­ev­er, I love the youth hos­tels in the moun­tains best of all. That’s why I could­n’t wait to vis­it Davos. The weath­er was great and it promised to be a per­fect week­end. But things were lit­tle dif­fer­ent at the begin­ning…

Outdoor equipment packed, let’s go to Davos…

We head off in the car from Flims to Davos. We decide not to go by train because my friend and I have so much out­door equip­ment, which we would pre­fer not to car­ry. In addi­tion to var­i­ous hik­ing boots, we’ve also packed all our climb­ing equip­ment.

On Fri­day, the day of our arrival, we plan to enjoy Lake Davos and relax, how­ev­er, this plan does­n’t come to fruition. As soon as we reach Davos, it begins to pour down with rain – the weath­er fore­cast had over-promised, unfor­tu­nate­ly. But it’s not a prob­lem; we just enjoy a more leisure­ly start to our Davos adven­ture instead. We opt for a well­ness expe­ri­ence at the “Eau la la” baths and a cake break in the pop­u­lar café Kaf­fee Klatsch. We also make an unplanned stop at the Büch­er Schuler book store and come out of the shop with two books each. After­wards, we head to the youth hos­tel – we imme­di­ate­ly take out our new books and head out to the bal­cony, which is a won­der­ful place to sit as it shel­ters us from the rain.

Our relaxed read­ing time is fol­lowed by din­ner. We enjoy a deli­cious cur­ry with rice. I choose the veg­an option with veg­eta­bles and my friend choos­es chick­en. The food has for­ti­fied us beau­ti­ful­ly for the two hikes we have planned over the next few days when the weath­er is sup­posed to be more set­tled.

Mountain ridge hike from Mount Jakobshorn to Mount Tällihorn

On the Sat­ur­day morn­ing, we set off from the Jakob­shorn cable cars. The train only runs to Ischalp in June. We hike the rest up to the Jakob­shorn. If we were there just a week lat­er, we would be able to catch the train. But this does­n’t deter us. We quick­ly man­age the spec­i­fied two hours and final­ly reach the fever­ish­ly antic­i­pat­ed ridge.

Ridge hikes are one of my favourites as you can look down into the depths to both the left and right. The first part of this hike is not chal­leng­ing and we pass the Jatzhorn and Witi­hüre­li peaks. More expe­ri­ence is required when you hike the sec­tion from the Täl­li­furgga to the Täl­li­horn. After han­dling a more chal­leng­ing climb, we reach the third peak of the day. We descend and reach Ser­tig – a charm­ing lit­tle alpine vil­lage. At the Bergführer restau­rant we both treat our­selves to a Coupe Romanoff dessert and then take the bus back to Davos.

The Jöriseen hike – a Davos classic

The hike to the Jöriseen lakes is prob­a­bly on the buck­et list of every Swiss per­son who likes to hike to moun­tain lakes. We decide to do this hike on the Sun­day and dri­ve to the Wäger­hüt­ta in the direc­tion of the Flüela Pass. The espe­cial­ly cool thing about the hike is that it is a cir­cu­lar tour. We climb up and head to the left for the first ascent of the pass.

Beau­ti­ful land­scapes on top of the moun­tain. ©Christi­na

There is still a lot of snow in mid­dle of June 2023. We meet peo­ple who are already on their way back. We are well equipped and expe­ri­enced enough to man­age the stren­u­ous walk across the snow. Things gen­er­al­ly pro­ceed well, but we some­times find our­selves sink­ing into the snow as far as our hips. But our desire for adven­ture pre­vails and we per­se­vere brave­ly. We reach the “Jöri­flüe­la­furgga” (pass cross­ing) at 2,722 meters above sea lev­el and have a view of the lakes – most of them are still almost com­plete­ly frozen.

How­ev­er, I see a few spots that have already thawed and am hap­py. My bikini’s in the back­pack. I am com­plete­ly cer­tain that I’m going to swim in the Jöriseen among the snow and ice. As soon as we arrive down at the lakes I put my plan into action.

Safe­ty is absolute­ly para­mount when it comes to ice bathing. This means that you should be well pre­pared, prac­tise and not stay in the water for too long. The way you feel after ice bathing is always a high­light – I feel like I’m reborn. After a break, we con­tin­ue walk­ing and then have to mas­ter the more dif­fi­cult part. There is much more snow on the way to “Win­ter­lüc­ka.” We fight our way up and descend quick­ly towards the Flüela Pass. Dur­ing the sum­mer months, this hik­ing tour takes about 4 to 5 hours. You have to add on approx­i­mate­ly two hours when the con­di­tions are still win­try.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, my time in Davos has come to an end, how­ev­er, in July I will head to Crans Mon­tana. Please write any fur­ther tips you have for Christi­na in the com­ments.