It was cloudy as we had breakfast early on Monday morning. After we packed and started getting the bikes out, the landlady showed up and told us our room wasn't clean enough and I had to give her 30 euros as a cleaning fee to get her off our backs. It started drizzling as we left the apartment, and the weather was coming from Berninapass, so all hope of riding the Bernina pass were crushed.
Riding the road back to the tunnel was straightforward. To my surprise, we didn't find any pacelines to draft off of, so we had to do all the work ourselves. Racing a 8:45am deadline, we slowed several times to let Bowen get back onto our draft, and arrived just in time to find that the bus wasn't there. The bus driver was late! When the bus driver showed up after 15 minutes, he had to hook up the trailer first, and then we had to put the tandem into the van. Since we were the only customers for that shuttle this was not an issue.
Arriving on the other side of the tunnel at 9:21, we started the climb up to Ova Spin, which is an easy climb from the 1600m tunnel. At the top of Ova Spin, we met a British couple who complained that they were sick of climbing mountains, having come up via Grimsel, Furka, Lenzerheide, and Albula. They were eager to get to the Alto Aldige bike path so they could have flat riding to Turkey. Ova Spin is not a real pass, and doesn't even have a pass marker, just a bus stop to commemorate your achievement.
The descent from Ova Spin to Zernez is fast and easy. There was some construction, which put a damper on our top speed. But the rain had stopped completely so while the roads were still wet we didn't get a single drop of rain on our jackets. At the bottom we stopped at the covered bike path bridge where we took off our jackets and leg warmers and prepared for the climb up the Maudalin.
Disappointingly, the bike path quickly dumped us back onto the main road after bypassing downtown Zernez. We had plenty of food from Livigno, so we didn't need food, so that was of no concern. To our surprise, the day started warming up as the sun emerged from behind the clouds. We started getting concerned about our chocolate melting, so we stopped and ate all the chocolate before starting a series of climbs that would take us up the Inn river towards Zuoz.
The road gave us beautiful views of the Engadin valley, including the river at times. I'd never seen the road from this direction before, and when going downhill you don't actually have a lot of time to gawk, especially since last year we were doing it while being chased by a thunderstorm and a postbus.
Arriving in Zuoz, we found the Spar around noon and had a supermarket lunch. During lunch, we looked at lodging options and decided that the Madulain lodge was a good choice. We booked it online and proceeded to buy dinner and breakfast, since the Madulain had a shared kitchen and the village itself was too small to have a supermarket!
Loading up the bike, we rode towards Maudalin. Somehow, Google maps detoured us onto a bike path (I would keep learning that Google maps is bad news on a bike tour) that ended up on dirt. It was pretty and of course we had plenty of time so it wasn't a concern, but it was pretty warm. I was surprised that it was so warm at 1600m, but then I reflected that Livigno was at 1800m and it felt pretty warm there too! Arriving at the Madulain Lodge at 1:00pm, we realized it was too early to checkin and the place was unstaffed. Our solution was to go for a hike!
We locked up the bikes behind the lodge, switched to walking shoes, and Xiaoqin proceeded to find a hiking path for us to use. The Engadin is super steep, so was the corresponding climb. We took our time, knowing that we had until 4:00pm or so before the automated system would grant us access. The path led us to castle ruins overlooking the valley. The views were nothing short of glorious. Hiking on, we found the fork, one direction of which would take us to the Albula pass, and the other would take us back into town.
We would see Albulapass tomorrow, plus the hike back to town would be far longer if we went that direction, so hiked into town, where the route opened up (once the trees are gone you have a clear view), and we had expensive Swiss ice cream at the Hotel Chesa Colani before getting to the Madulain Lodge where we were finally given key codes to unlock. The clear skies had given way to clouds.
Inside, we were given two rooms in one wing. No one else was in the wing, but the kitchen was shared with the other wing. Since we were earliest, we took showers, did laundry in the kitchen sink, and prepared dinner and ate it. As we were in the middle of dinner, other people moved into the other wing and started using the kitchen too. Soon, it started raining in earnest and we finally had the promised thunderstorm around 6:30pm. By 8:00pm, however, it had eased up a bit and we could take a short after dinner walk without being thoroughly soaked, though we did not dare wander far from the lodge.
No comments:
Post a Comment