In Romansh, the Alpine ibex is called Capricorn—an apt patron saint for a three-day traverse on the Via Capricorn in Graubünden’s Nature Park Beverin. This is a route threaded through a high country of glacial bowls and sapphire lakes, gentian-studded meadows, and serrated ridgelines where chamois flicker across rock faces and marmots whistle from their burrows as if to announce your arrival.
If you were to picture the archetypal Swiss mountain village, it would be tucked into a hillside, its houses arranged as though placed by a careful hand—wooden benches out front, geraniums in the windows, the whole scene hovering well above the valley floor where life runs faster. Dogs would be sprawled in the sun in the middle of the lane, and cats—unhurried, regal—would slip along barn walls still warm from a long summer.
A picture-perfect mountain village
That village exists. It’s Wergenstein, home to around thirty residents, perched at 1,485 meters above the Schamsertal in Graubünden. It’s also the beginning and the end of this loop: a multi-day walk that delivers all the Swiss-Alps essentials—big air, bigger views, and an almost unfair abundance of wildlife. (The ibex, after all, is Graubünden’s emblem; in these parts, it feels less like a symbol and more like a local celebrity you might bump into at any time.)
Via Capricorn: hiking just under 3,000 meters
Circling the 2,997-meter Piz Beverin, the Via Capricorn stays gloriously high—often above the treeline—where narrow paths stitch across alpine plateaus and the horizon stacks into an improbable wall of snow-dusted peaks. On warm days, the reward comes in the form of mountain lakes so clear and bracing they feel like a reset button.
And because the fantasy of a hiking escape is usually “effort” paired with “sleep,” this is not a hut-to-hut shuffle of snoring dorms and jangling headlamps. Here, you trade bunks and bivouacs for mountain inns—a small luxury that also means you can leave the sleeping bag at home and keep your backpack light.
A little comfort, on purpose
On this route, the evenings land softly: cozy rooms, excellent kitchens, and places you’ll secretly wish you’d booked for a week instead of a night. The hospitality is as consistent as the scenery—at Hotel Capricorns in Wergenstein, the Berggasthof Beverin on the Glaspass, and the Gasslihof in Thalkirch.
The whole itinerary covers about 52 kilometers, roughly 3,400 meters of elevation gain, and can be hiked in around 19 hours spread over three days. You don’t need to be a thru-hiking purist—but you do need decent legs and the kind of stamina that appreciates a long view.
Day One Via Capricorn: Up into the flow
From Wergenstein, the first day climbs—either by winding trails or with the Bus alpin Beverin—gaining about 800 meters toward the trailhead at Tguma. If you’re already thirsty, a very Swiss honor-system refreshment awaits: a bottle of Rivella chilling in a wooden trough fed by mountain stream water, payment dropped into a little metal box.
Then the Via Capricorn settles into a gentle rhythm across Alp Anarosa, an enormous alpine pastureland—2,800 hectares, the largest in Graubünden—whose real magic lies in its protected peatland.
Via Capricorn: Hiking the remnants of the Ice Age
The terrain undulates like a quiet sea: moraines from the last Ice Age, mossy greens so vivid they look edited, water bubbling up and disappearing again into miniature wetlands. Tufts of white cottongrass sway in the breeze, and somewhere in the dry glacial rubble, marmots have engineered entire neighborhoods—announced by sharp, directional whistles that make you look everywhere at once.
Alp Anarosa on the Via Capricorn: Where everything flows
Anarosa’s name carries an old root meaning “to flow,” and it’s hard to imagine a more accurate label: here, everything seems to run, ripple, seep, and sparkle. With a little patience, you might even spot the glossy-black Alpine salamander—a mountain oddity that can’t swim like most amphibians, yet still prefers life near streams.
Via Capricorn: Swimming with a summit view
As the path climbs again, the sun edging toward its zenith, the Lai Grand – Romansh for “big lake”-appears beneath the slopes of the Pizzas d’Anarosa and the kind of place that makes you forget your schedule. It’s time to rinse off the day, float on your back, and watch craggy peaks rise some 400 meters above the water while a golden eagle circles in the distance.
In terrain like this, you’d expect ibex. But the gray slopes keep their secrets.
Where the ibex should be
At the wildlife observation point Alperschälli, the park administration has tucked away an “expedition box” stocked with binoculars, a spotting scope, and notes on local wildlife.
The Safien–Rheinwald capra ibex colony—around 350 animals—lives in this wider region. And yet: not a curve of horn, not a silhouette. Summer heat, it seems, has pushed them higher, into cooler, less accessible ledges.
So you do what the Alps teach you: accept what’s offered. Eat your snack. Read the field notes.
Via Capricorn: Ibex know-how included
Learn that females can live up to 24 years, that older males’ horns can reach a meter and carry rings like trees, and that in steep terrain an ibex can clear an astonishing distance—up to seven meters horizontally, and obstacles up to four meters high. Because the ibex’s winter coat is deliberately darker in color, it warms up faster in the sun.
From the heights down into the Safien Valley
Then the Via Capricorn turns downward, dropping from the 2,529-meter Alperschällipass through the dramatic Höllgraba and into the Safien valley.
The contrast is immediate: on the east, strict peaks like Schwarzhorn and Bruschghorn; on the west, softer folds of meadow and forest, stitched with thin farm roads.
After about seven hours and 18 kilometers on the Via Capricorn, deck chairs outside the Gasslihof feel like a small miracle. Your pack hits the grass. A cold Rivella fizzes down your throat. The day’s work dissolves into late-afternoon ease.
Via Capricorn day two: Blue skies and cowbells
The next morning, the Via Capricorn traces the western side of the Safiental northward under a sky so blue it feels almost impolite. Weathered hay barns sit in saturated meadows, dark forest patches pool in the folds of land, streams slide down the hillsides, and cowbells chime everywhere—an alpine soundtrack you don’t tire of, because it never repeats itself exactly.
In the Walser hamlet Camanaboda, a sign invites you to linger at a farm kiosk called “Dem Himmel ein Stück näher”—“a little closer to the sky.” The Piz Beverin massif rises beyond the terrace, a cat arrives to negotiate scratches, and the self-service coffee machine is more than happy to deliver a second espresso.
It’s a merciful day by alpine standards: about 715 meters of ascent and 15 kilometers, ending after roughly five hours at the Berggasthaus Beverin on the Glaspass. The terrace catches the afternoon sun—and if you peer through the inn’s scope, you might think you’ve finally found your ibex. Then it shifts, and the truth appears: not an ibex, but a chamois, perfectly at home on a near-vertical wall.
Via Capricorn day three: The Carnusa valley and the turning sky
The final day offers about 19 kilometers, starting from the Glaspass and threading into the Carnusa valley, crossing the stream Carnusa, with the rugged western flanks of Piz Beverin on one side and the eastern outliers of Verdushora and Carnusahora on the other.
The climb to the 2,606-meter Carnusapass gains over 1,000 meters, and with the effort comes a shift in mood: the previously flawless sky begins to gather thick cumulus clouds, turning the light more dramatic by the hour.
“These slopes are where you usually see them,” Marco Waldburger from the Gasslihof had told us the evening before—Marco, a passionate hunter, speaks of chamois and ibex the way some people speak of neighbors.
But he’d also offered a caveat: in this heat, daytime sightings are rare. Early mornings and evenings are best, when the animals move down to graze.
Via Capricorn: chamois and ptarmigan
At midday, the ibex remain ghosts. But the mountains still perform: later, chamois cross a sheer rock face with casual grace, and two ptarmigan burst into flight beneath Piz Tarantschun, vanishing toward Lai la Scotga.
No ibex appears on the final stretch back to Wergenstein. And somehow, it doesn’t matter. In a landscape as intact as Beverin, the animals belong to the mountains, not to your camera roll. If you truly want the horned icon, you’ll need patience—or luck—or you can join the park’s guided wildlife walks.
At the end of the Via Capricorn
Either way, the Via Capricorn delivers what it promises: a few days on quiet trails in near-untouched high country, immersed in alpine wildlife and rare habitats, without giving up the pleasure of a warm room and a good dinner. It doesn’t just bring you a little closer to the sky—it makes you feel as though you’ve earned the altitude.
Feeling like more Switzerland? How about a few days of winter outdoor adventure in Davos? Maybe you are interested in the best things to do in Bavaria? Or do you want to read a beginners guide driving in Japan?
Via Capricorn
Getting there
By train and PostBus, for example from Munich via Lindau, Chur, and Thusis to Wergenstein (start/end point of the loop).
Where to stay
This three-day route uses well-equipped mountain inns, not huts: Berghotel Capricorns (Wergenstein) – single room with breakfast from CHF 105, capricorns.ch
Gasslihof (Thalkirch, Safiental) – double room with breakfast from CHF 90, gasslihof.ch
Berggasthaus Beverin (Glaspass) – single room with breakfast from CHF 85, berggasthaus-beverin.com
Package option
A package with four nights, breakfast, one half-board dinner, and three packed lunches from CHF 486, bookable via viamala.ch.
More information
Detailed information on activities and destinations across Graubünden can be found at graubuenden.ch. Further information about the Via Mala holiday region is available at viamala.ch.
