An Alpine Stroll

7 km, 200 m up, 550 m down
Bärgli – Carschinasee – Carschinahütte – Partnun

This is a lazy alpine hike, a stunning alpine experience with little sweat, or a mountain experience for the inexperienced (one still needs basic fitness and appropriate equipment). Just a day before, Yasuko found out that there is a bus leaving Sankt Antönien (1’460 m) to a dwelling called Bärgli (2’140 m). This is a 20-minute bus ride that covers, to my delight, the first 700 meters in altitude. From Bärgli, it’s just a one-hour hike to the famous Carschina hut situated in the Rätikon, right next to the Austrian border and also the trail-head to many great hikes and a couple of via ferratas.

Our bus driver, who is also a local hunter, explained to us that he uses his drone equipped with a thermal imaging camera to detect fawns in the fields before farmers cut the grass with their heavy machines. He detected two this morning and a total of 64 (!) this season. This 10 Swiss Franc service prevents hundreds of fawns from being killed by grass-cutting machines every year in the Prättigau alone. The fawns are born in grass fields and don’t have any instinct to escape until the age of about 6 weeks. During that time, they are particularly vulnerable.

Of course, one can argue that the hunters will hunt deer and kill them afterwards. Like many others, the hunters have an ambivalent approach to animals and the nature.

Meanwhile, Yasuko was hunting, more peacefully, for mountain plants, a new passion of hers. The mountains were now teeming with yellow, pink and red alpine flowers as well as succulent plants. She was often way behind me (that’s kind of new) enchantingly searching, watching and taking photos.

The rocky Rätikon mountain chain is as impressive as ever! We stopped many times and admired them in awe.

After our delicious home-made sandwich lunch with stunning views, we started the descent to Lake Partnun on a rather stony path, looking at vertical Sulzfluh above. Watching a marmot (or was it watching us?) and enjoying the views of lake Partnun, we went down the green valley full of alpine roses.