After hiking to Selun, I tagged along on my second hike with Sören, and by the time I wrote this blog, I had tagged along on a few more! Sören chose the trail, again by placing his fingers on the map where he hadn’t been yet. This time, we also got Łukasz to join!
The choice was Mattjischhorn, near Arosa. We drove to Chur with a stop in Heidiland. With the naivety of me never having been there, I assumed it to be a Swiss village with beautiful alpine landscape - turns out it is a glorified highway rest station, albeit with good food.
The road up from Chur twists and turns around the hills, giving a clear view of the valley including the impressive Langwieser Viadukt. Łukasz gave us hints of unease, clearly unsettled by the exposed nature of the road. The drive ended with a private access road, from the village of Langwies.
We started our hike in Strassberg, passing the mostly empty summer houses in the small village. The ascent began after passing the ski restaurant.
We quickly made our way up the first summit, with Sören leading the way as always. Happy faces!
The next part of the route we planned was to descend from this summit and follow a ridge towards Mattjischhorn. The narrow ridge was challenging for me but Sören kept spirits high leading the way and, of course, with a song. This picture of us on the ridge puts the song in perspective.
are you ready to fall”
Sören
How well suited for a ridge hike! We finally made it to Mattjishorn. A short break for lunch sandwiches and sausages, followed by a stretch on the grass. I remarked that it was such a nice place to sleep, to which Sören made us realize how we were lying in cow shit.
We walked down and further along the ridge. It got narrower and at one point we held on to a rope, one at a time, to get across.
We reached a hut at the saddle which was also when we decided to turn around back towards Strassberg. Sören would have loved to push for a few more summits but it was already a longer than usual hike for me and Łukasz.
We walked across what seemed to be an expansive marshland. I found the terrain to be beautiful with small grass mounds dotting the hill and tiny streams flowing down towards the ravine in the valley below. The marshland was easy to cross, thanks to a long pathway of solid planks.
I love such rivulets and I was glad to follow this all the way down to Strassberg.
We took the road back to Chur. This time I got in the front to see the winding roads! Sören had injured his shoulder and he was in quite some pain by the time we reached Chur. The pizzas helped, but unfortunately we forgot to take any pictures!
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