Fantastic Val dal Fain

I had a great day so far. The weather forecast said it would rain all day, but I woke up to blue sky. First I thought about walking to the Morteratsch Glacier, but that area was clouded over, while the Bernina Pass region looked sunny. So I decided to walk into the Val dal Fain from there.

Its name means “Valley of Hay”, and it’s known for its abundance of Alpine flowers. And it delivered better than I had expected. The meadows were so full of gentians, anemones, buttercups, primulas, orchids and other flowers that I felt like walking through an enormous garden. The first two extras can only give you a faint impression of the true splendour.

Further up the valley is marmotland, with big colonies of marmots. They were everywhere. Without the disturbances of summer, with cows grazing all over the valley, and many hikers and mountain bikers using the path, dozens of marmots were out and about. The main blip is a picture I took with my phone, so you can imagine how close I was to this little guy - hardly more than six or seven metres.

But the biggest surprise was still to come. I spotted some movement between the big rocks, and realized that I was about 100 metres away from a group of ibex. I had dreamed of seeing these magnificent animals in the wild for years, and here they were.

Sadly, the only good pictures I have from them are on my camera, and I haven’t managed to transfer them onto my phone or iPad. The app that I have often used before doesn’t seem to work anymore, or I am no longer able to get it working. To give you an idea of the pictures I made, I photographed the tiny camera screen with my phone, and added that as an extra. After my trip, I will change this placeholder for the real thing, and perhaps add another picture of the incredible ibex. 

Edit: changed the ibex photo for a better picture.