One woman one mission: Sina tests Scuol’s winter offer

The Engadin has always had a spe­cial appeal to me. With its char­ac­ter­is­tic conifers and the Romansh lan­guage, it enchants me time and again. It’s like div­ing com­plete­ly into anoth­er world – far away from every­day life. So I was real­ly look­ing for­ward to this trip, which took me to the youth hos­tel in Scuol.  

Scuol is super easy to reach. Either with the Rhaet­ian Rail­way or the Vere­ina car trans­porter. Scuol Youth Hos­tel is just a few min­utes’ walk from the sta­tion. Hun­gry and full of antic­i­pa­tion for the week­end we checked in and enjoyed a deli­cious din­ner of gnoc­chi and toma­to sauce.

From bed to board

Our first day starts ear­ly. It snowed overnight. For us freeride enthu­si­asts, tak­ing the first gon­do­la was prac­ti­cal­ly a must. But for all the thrills and adren­a­line, there is one rule that is non-nego­tiable: Those who ride off-piste must have the appro­pri­ate avalanche equip­ment with them and come pre­pared. They should also have attend­ed an avalanche course.

I always look into the avalanche sit­u­a­tion a few days in advance and watch how it devel­ops. How­ev­er, a final check on the morn­ing of the freeride day is essen­tial. Weath­er and snow con­di­tions can change con­stant­ly.

Checklist for freeriders:

1.       Check the avalanche sit­u­a­tion with the free “White Risk” app from the Swiss Insti­tute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) and get access to avalanche bul­letins, snow maps and oth­er infor­ma­tion.

2.       Pack your avalanche ruck­sack with the appro­pri­ate equip­ment. At min­i­mum, you should car­ry an avalanche trans­ceiv­er (LVS device), a probe and a shov­el.

3.       Find out about the wildlife pro­tec­tion areas from the lifts and fol­low the rel­e­vant signs.

4.       Assess the slopes your­self on site.

Tip: An expe­ri­enced moun­tain guide at your side pro­vides extra safe­ty and they can also tell you a lot about the local nature and the moun­tains.

After the oblig­a­tory checks, I gave our plan the green light. The snow con­di­tions in the area around the Clü­nas lift were ide­al for rid­ing the pow­der.  We took advan­tage until our legs trem­bled and it was time for lunch.

Even more action on the mountain

After for­ti­fy­ing our­selves at La Pal­ma moun­tain restau­rant, our after­noon pro­gramme con­tin­ued. We test­ed the snow park just above the restau­rant. The park offers some­thing for every lev­el of dif­fi­cul­ty and is very ver­sa­tile with var­i­ous jumps and obsta­cles, such as rails and box­es. By the way, the “Drag­on Line” was art­ful­ly designed and filled with obsta­cles made from upcy­cled mate­ri­als by my snow­board­ing col­league Ele­na Könz.

After some cre­ative and fun runs in the park, our next snow adven­ture on the moun­tain fol­lowed. We tack­led the 3.5‑kilometre sledg­ing run – sign­post­ed with slope num­ber 35. I don’t know whether the num­bers are a coin­ci­dence. After about 30 min­utes (or 35 min­utes 😉) we reached the val­ley sta­tion of the Ftan chair­lift.

By the way: Night-time sledg­ing is also offered in the high sea­son.

After our sledg­ing fun, we round­ed off the after­noon with après-ski at Mar-Mot­ta Bar. After­wards, we enjoyed anoth­er deli­cious din­ner at Scuol Youth Hos­tel. For a change, I ignored the invit­ing and gen­er­ous sal­ad buf­fet to leave enough room for the veg­an bar­ley soup and the veg­etable risot­to – mmm!

Relaxing on the mountain

Day two got off to a won­der­ful­ly relaxed start: I enjoyed the morn­ing on the ter­race of the youth hos­tel, sur­round­ed by the warm morn­ing sun, drink­ing a cup of tea and bit­ing into a nice, crisp apple. Cross-coun­try ski­ing was on the agen­da. A com­plete­ly new expe­ri­ence for me.

Although I grew up in a ski resort, I had nev­er thought about ded­i­cat­ing myself to cross-coun­try ski­ing. The day before, I got the rental equip­ment from the experts at MANARÖL and asked Xaver, the man­ag­ing direc­tor, for expert advice. MANARÖL also offers cross-coun­try ski­ing cours­es. But I decid­ed to take my first steps on my own.

I set off for the lifts in antic­i­pa­tion. I took the cable car to the Mot­ta Naluns moun­tain sta­tion and after a leisure­ly five-minute walk, the 2.6‑kilometre panoram­ic trail stretched out in front of me. It’s suit­able for both clas­sic tech­nique and skat­ing. I decid­ed to skate and looked for­ward to explor­ing this flat route. 

“Stand on the slats and try it out…”

…it can’t be that hard, I thought to myself and imme­di­ate­ly tried out my first steps on the nar­row skis. And in fact, I pushed off, slid for­ward and fell. For­tu­nate­ly, Corsin, who accom­pa­nied me as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, was engrossed in con­ver­sa­tion with a walk­er and missed my fall. 

My ath­let­ic ambi­tion was acti­vat­ed, and I nev­er give up any­way. My tenac­i­ty paid off: After a lit­tle prac­tice, I was able to move bet­ter and faster, becom­ing more and more con­fi­dent.

My cross-country skiing summary

Thumbs up for cross-coun­try ski­ing. I enjoyed chal­leng­ing my body and at the same time glid­ing through nature on my skis and enjoy­ing the peace and qui­et. The cross-coun­try ski trail in Scuol also offers a mag­nif­i­cent view of the val­ley and Tarasp Cas­tle. Right next to the cross-coun­try ski trail, La Charp­en­na moun­tain restau­rant also pro­vides for food and drink in between.

After these two days jam-packed with snow, I set off on my jour­ney home with lots of great impres­sions. One thing’s for sure– I’ll be back!

If you’re already look­ing for­ward to win­ter, you can get even more inspi­ra­tion from Sina here:

This trip was made pos­si­ble thanks to the sup­port of the MANARÖL Nordic Grav­el cross-coun­try ski rental and ski school and Berg­bah­nen Scuol. Thank you very much!

Grav­el instead of moun­tain bike

Are you as enthu­si­as­tic about bikes as Sina and want to dis­cov­er the north of Switzer­land? But don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly want to rush head­long down the trails? Sina has test­ed a grav­el bike tour for you. The route took her and her friend Anja from Buchs SG to Kreu­zlin­gen, on to Schaffhausen and end­ed in Basel.

Inter­lak­en in a dif­fer­ent way

Do you already know the Grisons like the back of your hand? There are also many cool bike trails wait­ing for you in Inter­lak­en. Sina is not only a pro on the grav­el bike, she is also pas­sion­ate about the bike trails all over Switzer­land.