On the second day of our road trip to St. Moritz, after St Gotthard Pass (6,909 ft; 2,106 m), we detoured to see the Viamala Gorge (Viamala-schlucht) in the canton of Graubünden. Click the following links to see our whirlwind tour of these Alpine mountain passes Grimselpass, Furkapass and St Gottard pass. The fourth pass will be featured in our next post.
The gorge was first called the “Evil Road” by mule drivers (“Via Mala” in Romansch) as it was a major obstacle on the approach to the Alpine passes of Splügen and San Bernardino.
Viamala lies between the small town of Thusis and Andeer, and had been recognized since Roman times. The gorge was created by glacial ice and the water of the Upper Rhine (Hinterrhein) carving into the mountain for thousands of years, resulting in steep cliffs as much as 300 meters deep from top to bottom.
Instead of music, try some natural sounds of water.
Various bridges and tunnels were built over the last few hundreds of years to give better access to this part of the Alps. The first stone bridge was built in the 1400’s followed by two others built in the 1700’s. For a motorist with a map, it is still quite confusing. As a motorway (A13) was built in 1967 along the river near the top of the gorge, one has to find the right exit to reach the visitor center below the highway. Viamala is only open from April 1 to November 1.
In 1903, a set of stairs was built to enable touristic exploration of the gorge. In 2010’s, a new visitor center was built by local architects near where once a kiosk stood. It is a strange-looking, modern concrete structure, looking more like a military installation.
The building is positioned at the edge of a 60 meter deep cliff and acts as a transition from the road into the gorge. The placement of the walls, the terrace and the stairs follow the topography.
While the structure appears closed towards the road except the narrow horizontal window, the other faces of the building are furnished with large window panes, as high as the room itself, which frame the impressive landscape.
The visitor center has a cafe and a small souvenir shop stocking guide books and even a 1934 Swiss novel about a murder in Viamala (later adapted into a film and TV show).
This canyon is probably one of the narrowest part of the gorge. A 359-step staircase descends to the canyon center bringing the visitor face-to-face with the lower half of the canyon.
Half way down the stairs, the path crosses over one channel of the narrow canyon and splits into two.
The path that goes upstream leads to another set of descending stairs which bores through the rock and ends at a viewing platform.
Not quite near the bottom of the canyon, we were wondering where the water level will be in spring/early summer when the snow melts.
The sight and sound must be spectacular here with a much larger volume of water coming down from the glaciers and mountains.
The rushing water carried big boulders from somewhere upstream and left the biggest ones stuck between the walls of the channel.
The water in the channel cascades from one big boulder to the next, and gushes through tight gaps.
Over the years, the water sculpted the sides of the channel which are now smooth and contoured. These zoomed-in photos do not do justice to the narrowness and depth of the canyon.
The other path that heads downstream follow the channel hugging one side of the canyon. It felt a bit like a tunnel as the overhanging rock almost touches the other side of the canyon wall.
It was shady and humid inside the canyon. The smooth rock surfaces that are now exposed suggest that they are underwater seasonally depending on the volume of flow.
The smooth rock faces had been washed by running water and therefore cannot hold onto any soil. The upper surfaces are covered by a carpet of mosses.
This passage ends in a small viewing platform overlooking a slightly wider section of the canyon.
There is another parking area further downstream where one can get closer to the water.
But we had to get to St Moritz before dark, so off we went to the last mountain pass.