Today’s agenda:

• Bus ride to Diavolezza and the cable car to near the top of the Morteratsch Glacier. We spent 45 minutes in 45-degree weather viewing the glacier and surrounding mountains.
• Back down the cable car and a short bus ride to the town of Morteratsch. There we were given two options:
  • Rock climbing with full gear, instruction and experience on a mountain wall. Carter did this and by all reports did well. He said he succeeded on the most difficult course but couldn’t quite complete the easier courses.
  • A hike with a biologist guide, which turned out to be about 2 miles each way, uphill going, at 6,000 feet altitude. I did this; Judy went a little way and decided, wisely, that hiking the pace they were going wasn’t for her. We hiked to the point at which water spews from the glacier, forming rushing rivers of water laced with the sediment from rocks dislodged by the water’s flow.

The Morteratsch region watershed serves as the headwaters for the Po River, flowing to the Adriatic, the Rhone River, flowing to the Mediterranean and the Rhine River flowing to the North Sea. As such, the water flow effects the lives of 100 million people. The Morteratsch Glacier is shrinking at a rapid rate. The two-mile path we followed had markers showing the location of the glacier’s head every ten years, starting in 1880. This past year has been especially hard due to low snowfall, warm weather and a coating of sand blown across the Mediterranean from the Sahara Desert. Dark material on the ice surface causes it to heat and melt faster.

• Next, an outdoor cheese fondu feed put on by a local cheese making company. Cheese and fondu were great. I asked the server for the fondu recipe and he refused: Proprietary secret, he said.
• The meal was accompanied by a quartet of Alphorn players. Alphorns are those super-long horns without stops or valves, that originally were used to communicate across the mountains and to call the cows. Pretty music. I’ll try to include a video clip.
• Then, Swiss games where teams competed in four areas: Knowledge of the Morteratsch Glacier region; A five-person toboggan race (see the pictures); crossbow shooting; ball throwing. Sad to say, Carter’s team of four other guys came in last but scored first in having fun.
• More options: mountain biking (Carter); downtown St. Moritz; back to the hotel. Nana and I chose the latter and the Alpine Power Napping skill.

We walked 10 minutes to an Italian restaurant. Good food and out in one hour flat. Carter hates wasting time in a restaurant.

Carter’s summary of all of this: “Awesome day!”

Tomorrow, off to Austria and white-water rafting.