Family weekend in Lenzerheide

Between biathlon, biking and mountain time

When I spend a week­end in the moun­tains with two chil­dren, I only need three things – nice weath­er, good food and a pro­gramme that makes every­one lose track of time. Lenz­er­hei­de is there­fore the per­fect des­ti­na­tion for a fam­i­ly week­end. 

So I take my nieces Leila (11) and Kiana (7) with me and the adven­ture begins. Our home for the week­end is Val­bel­la-Lenz­er­hei­de Youth Hos­tel. Short­ly after arriv­ing, one thing is already clear: You’re def­i­nite­ly not going to get bored here.

My Sat­ur­day gets off to a sporty start. As a biath­lete in top-class sport, train­ing at the Roland Are­na is a must. The facil­i­ty is a spe­cial place for me – and if you’ve only seen biathlon on TV, you should def­i­nite­ly try it out in an intro­duc­tion course. Because biathlon is much more than just cross-coun­try ski­ing and shoot­ing – on the track, your pulse soars, then you need to stand still, breathe, focus and hit the mark as close­ly as pos­si­ble. A com­bi­na­tion that requires con­cen­tra­tion and endurance at the same time. I leave it up to my nieces whether they want to watch my suc­cess rate or whether they pre­fer to watch the cows in the adja­cent pas­ture.

As soon as every­thing is packed up, the next item on the pro­gramme is already wait­ing – trail run­ning on Scalot­tas. And what can I say? When you con­stant­ly want to stop whilst run­ning because the view is so beau­ti­ful, then Lenz­er­hei­de is just the place for you. The trails lead through an impres­sive moun­tain land­scape and offer exact­ly what I love about this region – exer­cise, nature and time and again where I find myself think­ing, wow, the climb is def­i­nite­ly worth it.

At the top I meet my hap­py nieces who are pleased that they’ve arrived before me. With a smile, I don’t men­tion that rid­ing in a chair­lift doesn’t real­ly count, and enjoy the 360-degree panora­ma with them – with­out giv­ing a sec­ond thought to pace, pulse or time. 

After so much exer­cise, we quick­ly agree: now we need a fresh burst of ener­gy. Din­ing togeth­er at the youth hos­tel is just the thing after a busy day. After that, Leila, Kiana and I go to the games room. Ping-pong, board games and all the things you do when you start to get tired but the children’s thoughts are far from going to sleep. When play­ing ping-pong, the two devel­op their own tac­tics – return­ing every ball, if pos­si­ble, with antics and silli­ness. And it works amaz­ing­ly well!  

The next morn­ing we also start out in the fresh air. At a hearty break­fast on the ter­race, there’s cof­fee for me and plait­ed loaf for every­one. The sun is shin­ing on our faces – that’s how a relaxed moun­tain morn­ing begins for me.  

After break­fast, or actu­al­ly dur­ing brunch, we are drawn to the play­ground next door. There we play “Catch, Climb­ing and The Floor is Lava”. It’s pre­cise­ly these sort of sim­ple moments that make a fam­i­ly week­end in Lenz­er­hei­de spe­cial for me.

You then con­tin­ue on foot. We hike a while through the moun­tains – and, of course, there’s a treat to be had after­wards – ice cream by the lake. This has long been part of a fam­i­ly strat­e­gy for us and works reli­ably.  

But I just can’t resist it and hop on my moun­tain bike. Lenz­er­hei­de is sim­ply great for that – the Bike King­dom offers a vari­ety of trails, new lines and bends, and occa­sion­al encoun­ters with local cows. What I par­tic­u­lar­ly like about this is that I don’t have to choose between sport, fam­i­ly time and a relax­ing week­end in the moun­tains. Every­thing can be com­bined togeth­er won­der­ful­ly in Lenz­er­hei­de. Moun­tains, lake, trails and var­i­ous offers for adven­tures, big and small, are prac­ti­cal­ly on your doorstep. Val­bel­la-Lenz­er­hei­de Youth Hos­tel is the ide­al start­ing point for this.

So: Pack your bike or hik­ing boots, grab your fam­i­ly and off you go. Maybe your per­son­al high­light is already wait­ing in Lenz­er­hei­de. In the end, the best part is what we expe­ri­ence togeth­er.