Hiking the Via Alpine or Alpine Pass Route Switzerland

Unfortunately we never completed this leg of our hike, having returned early to Australia for ian’s dad who sadly passed away 3 days after we returned.  The Walserweg will wait til some other time.

The Walser are the speakers of the Walser German dialects, and inhabit the Alps of Switzerland and Liechtenstein, as well as the fringes of Italy and Austria. The Walser people are named after the Wallis (Valais). They Walser left their homeland in southwest Germany and settled in what we know today as the Bernese Oberland, in Switzerland, around the fifth century A.D., subsequently migrating to a mountainous region in the Swiss canton of Valais (Wallis), where they settled successfully. From here, they began to spread south, west and east between the 12th and 13th centuries, in the so-called Walser migrations, and these routes became Walserwegs, or Walser path ways. 

The route we'll be following to a large extent, is Route 35, a traditional route used by the Walsers, beginning in Chiavenna (Northern Italy) and finishing in Klosters (Eastern Switzerland).   The route leads through historic cultivated landscapes, typical scattered Walser settlements, Alpine meadows and shady stone pine and larch forests. These impressive natural environments alternate with evidence of Walser pastures and mountain farming. Typical slanted wooden fences, Walser houses burned brown by the sun, log-cabin-style barns and regional building variations such as steeply-pitched roofs in Vals and wood-shingle roofs in the Safiental valley add to the appeal of this long-distance trail.  We'll pass through many villages typifying Walser culture, such as Safien, and Langwies and major Walser centres such as Davos, Klosters and Arosa.