St. Moritz lies on the southern slopes of the Albula Alps, a mountain range in eastern Switzerland, overlooking the flat and wide glaciated valley of Engadine and Lake St. Moritz.
Because we were visiting just after the peak tourist season, the hotel gave us free unlimited passes for use on the cable cars and funicular trains that were still running, basically all the routes which travel up to the most popular viewpoints.
We traveled up to two other peaks beside Muottas Muragl (see last post): Piz Nair which is directly atop the center of St Mortiz Dorf, and Signal which is situated above St. Moritz Bad.
To reach Piz Nair, a funicular departs from the town center to Corviglia, a ski area at 2,486 m (8,156 ft). Then, we took a cable car to the upper station that is 30 metres (100 ft) below the summit.
Corviglia has a restaurant and a flat area for people to lounge around under the sun, and for young kids to ride their bikes in a small circuit. It is the center of the largest ski area in the Engadine valley.
This mountain hosted the alpine skiing events for the 1948 Winter Olympics. It also hosted the World Championships in 1934, 1974, 2003, and 2017.
From Corviglia, we transferred to a cable car (gondola) to continue our ascent.
There are 24 ski lifts, 36 slopes and 14 mountain restaurants.
In the summer, the same installations support hiking and mountain biking.
As we gained altitude, the conifers thinned out. The biome changed to alpine pasture, and soon the elevation was too high for most vegetation except a thin layer of lichens on rock surfaces.
At the summit stood a statue of an ibex, a large mountain goat with curved horns. Needless to say, the panoramic view from here at 10,026 ft (3,056 m) was fantastic.
Surrounding us were many higher peaks, one with a mini glacier.
We saw many trails radiating from Piz Nair. Several small groups of cyclists were riding with us in the cable cars with their dirt bikes, fully equipped for a fast and furious way downhill.
Signal at 2130 m is another destination that we visited. The cable car station was only 5 minute walk from our hotel in St Moritz Bad.
On the short ride up to Signal, we got to see St. Moritz hugging the lake, from a different direction (west to east).
The trip offered a typical view of off-season ski slopes – almost mundane.
We also saw the funicular that took us up to Corviglia. It did not seem so dramatic when we were on it.
We will end this post with a photo of windsurfing and kite-surfing on Lake Champfer and a corner of the neighboring town of Silvaplana (reaching the limit of our point-and-shoot zoom camera).
To see more above St. Moritz, go to our post on Muottas Muragl, click here.