Bloated Skiing: July 29 - Durannapass #631

Holy cow. We had Ebikes today, and it was supposed to be easier. The difficulty rating for today's ride was only 3 of 5, and the Fitness rating was also a 3 or 5. These Europeans are crazy. We ended up with 40 miles, even though our description listed 44.6 kilometers.

Rode the Parsenn Funicular again, and made our way down to Strela Pass, 2346 meters. Here we went right and dropped off into a new valley. The trail was quite steep, and Kevin thanked Francine for picking a ride with such a technical descent. She ended up walking a big chunk of the initial steep, loose, switchback terrain.

After a mile or so, the trail ended on a gravel road, and we descended rapidly, with the gravel turning to pavement. We had some confusion at a covered bridge, right before the small town of Langwies. Two other guys we met on the initial descent, not on Ebikes, decided to head up the trail, thinking it might be a short cut to Durannapass, where we were headed. It was signed Durannapass, but our directions clearly said turn at Langwies at 1377 meters. We split with them and stayed on the main route.

Our description said "The next long but pleasant ascent starts in Langwies leading to the settlement of Strassberg". This was actually a super steep paved road climb - barely pleasant with the ebikes on e-mtbike mode . Our bikes have 4 settings - Eco, Tour, E-mtb and Turbo. Francine's bike seemed to have more power, due to the weight to power ratio, being 40 pounds less than Kevin. We climbed for a long time. We never saw the two guys on regular bikes, and hopefully they are in really good shape, as we would never have finished today's ride without Ebikes. I imagine they would never be able to make the climb, and would end up bailing down valley and looking for a train??

Stopped and had a break at Strassberg outside the restaurant. It was amazing how many people had actually driven their cars this far to have lunch. Continued our climb up to Duranna pass 2117 meters. Thank goodness for the Ebikes. It seemed like a huge climb but works out to 2,427 feet

After Duranna pass, we descended on double track then hit a good section of singletrack. Then we had a good chunk of gravel roads. Many of the mountain bike routes our a mix of trail and roads. This route was incredibly scenic but only about 15 kilometers out of 44 were actual trail. We ended up dropping to the Gotschnag chair lift, had espresso, and rode the tram to the first station. This time we descended the Gotschna Freeride (flow) trail. We had skipped this the day prior due to the rain. It was suppose to be a take on A-line trail from Whistler. It was a fun flow trail in good shape, but had quite a bit of freaky elevated wood rollercoater type stuff. Also, the layout was not as conducive or safe for jumping like at Whistler. Our tram to the trailhead was filled with poser(best dressed) mountain bikers that looked good but evidently don't ride real trails very often. Seemed to not be many local riders. After the A-line trail we were pretty fried. Hot day, lot's of hours in the saddle. Luckily we had ebikes! Since we still had 3 of 5 bars on our batteries, we climbed in Turbo mode to Wolfgang pass. Here we went left around the lake at Laret hamlet, and had more climbing in the forest in Turbo mode.

Went on the left side of Davosersee Lake this time, and stopped at the packed swim beach, complete with live music and windurfing rentals.

Made it back home at 5:30, a little later than we were expecting, as today was supposed to be easier Despite having Ebikes we are whooped. 39 miles of travel including funicular and tram ride. Over 15,000 feet of descending.