Klosters And Caumasee

Carly and Michael invited me to come visit them in Klosters this weekend. Michael and I wanted to go for a dive on Saturday. The rest of the time we could enjoy a hike or some board games. Since it is a five hour train journey I decided to take Friday afternoon off for the trip. I left Geneva at 13:45 heading to Zurich with the train. Michael and Carly met me in Sargans, because I missed my connection in Zurich. Together we headed to Restaurant Balans in Malans for dinner. I had a great plate of Cordon-blue with some Rösti and a solid local lager. We picked up some needed groceries on the way to Klosters. Here I learned about a Nußbrot that Coop sells which is delicious. Turns out the Coop across the street from my apartment sells the same bread. We spent the evening chatting about Mouseguard, a role-playing based in a fantasy settings where mice hide cities and civilization from the other stronger animals of the forest. We are planning a session with some friends in Lausanne in two weeks. Then we played few games of Dominion, Michael and Carly pwned me, clearly I don't game enough these days. I really enjoyed the nights sleep away from the city noise of Geneva.

Caumasee

Saturday morning Michael and I headed to Chur to drop by the dive shop there to pick up some rental gear and see about getting a permit to drive to the lake. Unfortunately the shop had forgotten about the gear Michael requested, but after an hours of sorting through things I ended up with two 7L steel cylinders and 8kg of lead for my side-mount rig. The tall thin 7L cylinders felt very nice for the dive, much better than the 10 and 12L cylinders I've tried thus far. Though I am a bit of an air hog, so if I do buy some cylinders I'll probably settle for the 8L cylinders.

The dive water in the lake w
as beautiful glacial blue. We saw a few juvenile fish during our dive. Every rock and the entire ground was covered in an algae layer which supported a dusting of sand. There were some neat rock piles along the shore of the lake with lots of nooks and crannies to scout for signs of resident life.

After the dive we enjoyed a pick-nick by the lake taking in some warm sunshine. There were plenty of friendly hikers and bikers about that were curious about our dives, so we got to chit chat a bit as well. While the dive was not hugely exciting, it was a neat experience to see an environment similar in topology, yet completely alien to the diving in BC. Afterwards we dropped off the rentals at the dive shop (SCUBALINO). A very nice shop if you find yourself in the area looking to go diving.

Once we returned to Klosters we rinsed our gear. After we had a cold drink and some ice cream on the terrace at Michael and Carly's place. It was a gorgeous day outside so we enjoyed the view down the valley, warm sunshine, and good conversation. Later it started raining a little, so we moved inside and spend the evening creating mice characters for mouseguard: Carly made a naive country mouse, Michael a paranoid guard veteran, and my mouse a boisterous mouse-supremacist. Events the following week make me feel my cynical character parody was in bad taste [link].

Cavadürli

After a lazy morning breakfast we decided to use the beautiful weather to hike up to a place called Cavadürli from Carly and Micheal's place. From their house we took a neat path across some hay-fields to the river on the other side of the valley. The river was still brimming with water melting off the mountains. After crossing the river the trail started climbing up the side of the mountain. The wild fields were full of beautiful mountain flowers and we met some goats grazing by the path. After crossing underneath some train tacks - yes Swiss trains really go everywhere - we lost the path. An evil-eyed stare from a couple of local farmers had us turn about and search for the path elsewhere. Turns out we missed a turn just after the train tacks. Here the path leveled off taking us through some beautiful forest and past some nice mountain huts. A few mountain bikers were enjoying the downhill trails crossing our path as we started our descent back into the valley. We sat down for lunch before reaching the town and heading back to the house. I learned that in general berries growing close to the ground should not be eaten here: foxes tend to pee on them and their urine carries a very unpleasant bacteria (Leptospyrosis?). They do look nice though.

After the hike we played through an encounter of Mouseguard and I got whipped one more time at Dominion. Afterwards Michael dropped me off at the Klosters Dorf train station and I headed back to Geneva. I shared a few friendly beers with a couple of punkers returning from a concert and two friends of theirs returning from military service on the weekend. They recommended a concert in Davos in September. I made it back to Geneva before midnight and collapsed exhausted but happy into bed.