The up to 80 slopes in this winter sports paradise are spread across three large ski areas – the “World Cup” mountain of Corviglia, the dramatic Corvatsch, and the thrilling slopes of Diavolezza and Lagalb – and five smaller ones. Spoilt for choice? Our Snow Safari offers an exhilarating selection of the finest pistes – and cosiest mountain restaurants – right across the Engadin.
Your one-day grand tour begins with a cable-car ride from the Furtschellas base station in Sils up to an altitude of 2,800 m, where the scenic run down to Alp Surlej provides a magnificent warm-up for the day’s adventure. The next two rides carries you to the highest cable-car station in the Eastern Alps: the Corvatsch summit station, a proud 3,303 m above sea level. With each vertical metre the cable car climbs, you feel more and more excited at the prospect of the legendary Hahnensee piste that awaits. But before tackling it, you will want to linger at the summit to enjoy the glorious views of the fairy-tale winter landscape at your feet: the frozen lakes, small villages and snow-blanketed forests on the slopes of the mountain giants all around.
The run via Hahnensee takes you nine sparkling kilometres all the way down to the valley floor at St. Moritz Bad. You could of course cruise straight down the mountain non-stop, but several panoramic viewpoints along the way invite you to pause, breathe in the fresh mountain air and soak up the sunshine. Can you see the pistes of the Corviglia across the valley? The next stage of your tour awaits there.
From St. Moritz Bad, the Signal cable car carries you up a mountain whose slopes have already hosted five World Ski Championships. The Snow Safari takes you to the Corviglia summit station, the Piz Nair, and then to Trais Fluors and Marguns before a glorious long descent all the way down to Celerina. By then, you will have ticked off 4,444 vertical metres, 88 km of runs and 9 pistes. So you really deserve a reward along the way: stop at one of the beautiful restaurant terraces on Corviglia, and treat yourself to a leisurely break in the sunshine – and to a gourmet delicacy or two.
Whether Celerina really is the end of your Snow Safari day is entirely up to you – depending, of course, how much time you have left. Fast skiers and snowboarders, and those who have made an early start, can easily catch a bus up to Lagalb and enjoy a run there before switching to the day’s third 3,000-metre peak: the Diavolezza, with its magnificent 10-kilometre glacier run, the longest in Switzerland. The piste ends by the Restaurant Morteratsch, where you can celebrate completing your Snow Safari in style.
