Second Day on the Stelvio Glacier and Hiking to a Cave

The group pauses at the edge of the trail looking down over Switzerland.

The skies were sunny for our second day up above 10,000 feet on the Stelvio Glacier. An inch or two of fresh snow made the skiing slow but we couldn’t have asked for better conditions. As always, the scenery is dramatic, but we focused on skiing solidly for 1:40, stopping roughly every lap for a few minutes to refuel and hydrate.

Elliot’s in that picture somewhere!

On the drive down the 48 switchbacks, we spotted a cave in the mountain side and pulled the van over to check it out.

A short hike later, we scrambled up a final pitch and entered the cave.

We hung out for a few minutes, checked out a spider hanging from the mouth of the cave, then headed across a river to check out the glacial features left behind as the glacier retreats up its valley.

We trundled a few rocks into the chasm, looked across at some Chamois that were cruising around on the far moraine, and collected a few pretty sweet rocks. The area is all pretty amazing, especially thinking about how recently the whole valley was filled with ice.

Justin had driven down to Bormio to get some Ski Trab equipment, and we capped the day with some team photos with the new gear.

Dev and Toine pose at the 28th switchback: they made it this far on mountain bikes a few years ago before being forced to turn back due to snow and rain. They claim the bike ride down was the coldest experience of their lives.