Val da Camp (Lagh Saoseo & Viola): Grisons, Eastern Switzerland
If you do the Val da Camp hike in the fall, just prepare to be completely overwhelmed. Overwhelmed in the best way. It is absolutely exquisite.
The star of the show is the pristine Lagh da Saoseo, a lake surrounded by a thick forest of golden larches and evergreen pines, towered over by snow-capped mountains, all perfectly reflected in the crystalline water. The colors are so intensely saturated - aquamarine, topaz blue, saffron yellow, buttery gold, hunter green - it is almost too much to take in at once. Overwhelmed. But truthfully, this whole trail is sensory overload. I’m not sure if I’ll ever recover.
The trail starts and ends at Sfazù. From Buril, we took the hiking path that forked right from the main road (the trail that passes through Terzana). This route passes up through larch forests, frosty meadows, tiny partially-frozen no-name lakes ...and has barely any other hikers. It pops you right up to Lagh Saoseo, where your mind will be appropriately blown. After taking approximately 1000 pictures at Saoseo, we then took the longer (1.5 hour) path to Lagh da Viola. It’s a steep climb up and above the treeline, reaching a wide plateau with unparalleled views of the mountains and the valley below. Viola is a deep, cobalt blue lake that would be the jewel of the region, if not for the steep competition from Saoseo. Then, we looped down to Camp, where we connected with the main road back down to Sfazù. This is a gentler descent than the path we took up, and with all the larches glowing in the late afternoon sun, is the perfect way to end.
Both hut restaurants (Camp and Lungacqua) were closed by the time we got to them, but there is a little unassuming place right next to the Sfazù parking lot that is great. Their decadent homemade spinach spätzle hits the spot after a long day outside, and the prices are shockingly low for Switzerland.
