The Alps

After hiking part of the way up Grosser Priel in the dark and the rain the first day (or night, rather), and in the daylight the second day (not the original plan but...), we slept in Welser Hutte, waking up to this spectacular scene of clouds lying low on what are by no means low mountains. My friends climbed to the summit on this day, although I had to give up rather quickly for safety reasons, as I'm no expert, so Welser Hutte was again a refuge for me. We climbed down immediately afterwards, in better weather and in daylight.

took this on my way up Grosser Priel, approaching Welser Hutte, just visible to the left at the top. This was already high enough so that we were above the treeline and in the snow.

This was the view of Pontresina itself as we departed, but I figured it belonged at the beginning anyway, or maybe I was just incompetent? :-)

This is Pontresina Bahnhof (Station) on the Rhatische Bahn, or Rhaetian Railway, where I was to board the Bernina Express for Tirano, on the Italian border. This was one of the most memorable train trips I ever took on a regular train, so I decided awhile ago to first show these shots in my first NRHS slide show, and later online.

Here's the view from the Pontresina Bahnhof parking lot. I don't know what mountain that is, but it caught my eye. Notice also the American style camper van in the lot!! :-)

Here's a shot of the Pontresina yard.

This is the train that formed the Bernina Express when I rode it. It an EMU, obviously, but I don't know the class.

Here's one of the Rhatische Bahn's freight trains, as surprisingly there is a certain amount of freight on it, in spite of the narrow gauge.

Here's another view of the countryside near Pontresina. It was December, and in the Swiss Alps, so unsurprisingly there was a lot of snow.

And...here's the grade out of Pontresina!! I knew that these trains were designed to take steep grades, but this is really exceptional, and looks it.

Here are some of the coniferous trees on the route.

Here we are continuing to charge the grade out of Pontresina.

Although it wasn't sunrise or sunset, because I was shooting directly into the sun on this one, and the sun was behind a cloud, it gives that impression, I think. This is one of my favorite all time landscapes.

As we approached the treeline, we began to parallel a road, and ended up pacing this Opel Ascona, eventually outrunning it.

Here we are side by side with the Opel.

Here's pretty much the end of the treeline, with a few last ones before the bare ice and rock.

At this point, we were still paralleling the road, and the Opel was long gone. You can see some trees on the right, but the treeline is mostly past at this point.

This was a ski lodge, if I'm not mistaken, which amazed me, actually. Many people ski from very high up.