Rinerhorn

After yesterday's challenging ride, today was a planned rest day. The local area is keen to promote tourism during the off season (this being ski territory), and so we received passes good for some local bus routes and attractions.

Our hosts had something special in mind: reputedly one of the top ten hikes in Switzerland.

Gondolas whisked us to the top of the Rinerhorn, where a wonderland of wildflowers awaited.

Being rather a fan of wildflowers (and I mean that in the true sense of the word: fanatic), I was enthralled. The meadows were carpeted with flowers, with more variety than I had ever seen. This spawned a friendly guessing game at dinner: “How many pictures of flowers did pep take today?”

My GPS spontaneously shut down early on the hike, so I have only a partial track to share.

The view of the Sertig valley was breathtaking. We hiked along the ridge before dropping down to cross the Sertigbach and enjoy lunch on the deck at the Restaurant zum Bergfuhrer in Sertig Dörfli.

Oh, the flowers! The snow-capped peaks! The chalets! The Swiss countryside is like something out of a fairy tale.

I was fascinated by these rigs, sharpened branches criss-crossed just so. I noticed they were frequently hung over windows, and wondered if they were a form of shutter. One of my hosts, expert on local history and traditions, enlightened me. They're racks, used to elevate hay bales in the fields to dry them.

The transportation network here is phenomenal. We boarded a bus that returned us to Davos, where some of our group hoped to view an exhibit at the art museum. We wandered through town; there was no museum in sight. This being a Sunday, virtually everything was closed. I pulled out my smartphone, and (you guessed it) found the museum on a parallel street.

It was closed. A pastry shop was open, though. Our group had winnowed down to three, and I persuaded them to put our passes to good use on the Schatzalp-bahn funicular.


The skies were dark and the raindrops started falling. My companions had little enthusiasm for lingering at the top. “Just a little farther,” I coaxed, admiring the flowers. Our host explained that this one, in particular, was special: an alpine orchid, the broad-leaved marsh orchid. We had seen a few on the Rinerhorn, and here was a meadow dotted with them.

Not all of my flower photos were keepers, of course; some were blurry, some were repeats. How many unique specimens did I capture? Half of all I shot? One-third? The unexpurgated total (close-up photos, not sweeping vistas): sixty-three.