Sentiero Alpino Calanca | GET INFORMED
Do you like the idea of a 3 days getaway to walk across alpine terrain and explore the mountains of a rather unknown valley in Switzerland?
YES? Then the Sentiero Alpino Calanca might be the adventure you are looking for. Pick up pen and paper and start realizing this amazing escape from reality!
At first, it can be difficult to gather all the information to plan a long hike.
This post will guide you through the most common questions that usually fill up my brain when I start dreaming about hiking a new trail.
What is the Sentiero Alpino Calanca?
The Sentiero Alpino Calanca is a 45 km long trail which spans between San Bernardino (Ospizio) and Santa Maria In Calanca, across the mountains of the rather unknown Calanca Valley in Switzerland. The trail crosses a few self-catering and staffed huts, which offer accommodation. Hikers usually take 3 days to complete this trekking.
What kind of experience does it offer?
The Sentiero Alpino Calanca leads hikers high up into the wild mountains of the Calanca Valley, far away from the busy town life. Although quite short, it is a challenging trekking, testing adventurers both mentally and physically, but rewarding them with breathtaking alpine landscapes.
The trail is not very popular, and therefore offers the perfect settings for who is looking for solitude while hiking. However, the presence of mountain huts allows hikers to meet, share dinner and chit-chat.
We hiked this trail in a group of 5 friends, and it was great to share all the good moments and struggles along the way… we collected special memories we will never forget.
That being said, it is important to note that a thru hike will always provide a different and unique experience to every hiker. In short, Hike Your Own Hike!
Where can I find useful information?
From my personal experience, I know that the planning phase of a long-distance hike can easily become tricky and overwhealming, especially if you don’t know which information source you should trust more. Here you can find the pages that we used to organize our adventure on the Sentiero Alpino Calanca.
The website: this website helped us figuring out the stages of the Sentiero Alpino Calanca. It also gives an overview of the accommodation options along the way, the walking time needed to reach them, and the contact information for booking them!
The app: the Schweizmobil App is helpful for the planning of the stages and to check the trail map. It can also be used from the website with the provided link.
The Trail Chat: feel free to ask me anything about the trail, I am always happy to help and support you during the planning phase of your thru hike!
Which difficulties will I face?
Although quite short, the Sentiero Alpino Calanca is a tough trekking. The stages foresee high elevation gain and loss, the trail is often exposed and sometimes crosses technically difficult alpine terrain of level T3.
We would not recommend it to people who have extreme fear of heights, but we are convinced that any passionate hiker with trekking experience and knlowledge about alpine terrain, a good level of fitness and proper equipment would be able to complete this trail.
The most important challenges to consider for hiking the Sentiero Alpino Calanca are elencated here below:
HEAVY BACKPACK
Your backpack could become quite heavy if you don’t plan your equipment list well. More importantly, make sure you know how to use your equipment before heading out into the unknown! You can find a list of everything we brought with us in the posts EQUIPMENT and FOOD.
EXPOSED SECTIONS & TECHNICAL TERRAIN
Aside from the steep ascents and descents that you will face every day, the trail is often a quite rocky, narrow and exposed path of grade T3. Moreover, you will encounter a few sections with chains and ladders. I would therefore not recommend this trail to people who greatly fear heights.
The good news is that you don’t have to worry about losing the path on the Sentiero Alpino Calanca. The trail is very well marked, and you’ll constantly find red and white signs along the way.
SNOW
We hiked the Sentiero Alpino Calanca mid June, and there were still a few sections requiring the crossing of snow patches. These sections were never extremely steep, the snow was not frozen nor slippery and it was easy to follow other hiker’s shoe prints. There was only one snow crossing that could have been potentially dangerous, because of a river flowing underneath, but it was equipped with a rope.
However, depending on the time and year you’ll decide to hike this trail, I would advise to make a call to Capanna Buffalora, to get informed about the snow conditions and to decide whether it is necessary to pack microspikes or crampons.
WEATHER
The weather is a potential issue that you must not underestimate on the Sentiero Alpino Calanca, as it can be unpredictable in the mountains, and I am sure nobody wants to be stuck in the middle of a thunderstorm at high altitudes. I therefore strongly advise to check the weather forecast before heading to this adventure and every day on trail, and to plan accordingly.
CELL PHONE RECEPTION
This trekking leads hikers high up into the mountains, where cell phone signal is sometimes scarse or not present, and where weather can be unpredictable. For these reasons, we recommend to carry a GPS device that also has a SOS button, which can be pressed for alerting authorities in emergency situations. If you are curious to see which devices we brought with us, head to our EQUIPMENT post.
When is the best time to hike it?
The Sentiero Alpino Calanca is usually hiked from mid June to end September, when the trail is mostly clear of snow and the mountain hut Capanna Buffalora is open and staffed. However, it is important to always stay vigilant, as the weather in the mountains can be unpredictable anytime of the year.
We hiked the Sentiero Alpino Calanca mid June 2023. We were super lucky with the weather, which was beautiful every day on trail. The crossing of snow patches was also very doable, since the snow was not frozen nor slippery and it was easy to follow other hiker’s shoe prints.
I personally think late September is also a good month to hike this trail, as magical autumn colors might explode in the valley, due to the presence of many larches!
How do I reach the trail?
If you have read the above information about the Sentiero Alpino Calanca and decided that you want to embark on this special long-weekend adventure, it is time to start thinking about how to actually reach the trail.
The official starting point is San Bernardino (Ospizio), in Switzerland. It can be reached by bus, and I advise to check the SBB App for finding your best connections!
Since we live in Zürich (Switzerland), we decided to save some time and energy by travelling closer to the starting point the evening before hitting the trail. In the post OUR TRIP you can find our travel schedule, which might give you some inspiration.
What should I pack?
For hiking the Sentiero Alpino Calanca, as for any other long distance hike, we advise to minimize your pack weight as much as possible. You will find a detailed list of the equipment we took along with us in the post EQUIPMENT.
Here I will just try to answer the most frequently asked questions during the planning phase of this thru hike.
What about wildcamping and camping gear?
Wildcamping is forbidden on the trail, because it crosses the National Park of Val Calanca. Therefore, this trail might not be the most suitable for hikers who want to sleep in their tents to get closest to nature.
Apart from a sleeping bag liner to sleep at the huts, we also did not pack any camping gear, therefore reducing the weights of our packs drastically.
How much food should I carry?
The only hut on the trail offering dinner, breakfast and a picknick for the next day is Capanna Buffalora (end of stage no. 2). For this reason, provided that you follow the official stages, make sure you pack enough food including:
1 breakfasts (for the second hiking day)
2 or 3 lunches (fir the first, the second and/or the third hiking day, depending whether you choose to purchase the picknick or not)
1 dinner (for the first hiking day)
snacks and protein bars
If you are curious about our food strategy on the Sentiero Alpino Calanca, head to our FOOD post.
How much water should I carry?
We started hiking every morning with 2L water in our backpacks. The bottles can be refilled at the clean sources of the huts.
Where can I leave my normal clothes?
You will definitely not need fancy clothes for this adventure. Therefore, make sure to only pack clothes that you REALLY need during the hike. The full list of the clothes I packed can be found in the post EQUIPMENT.
How much money will I spend?
For this adventure we spent 250 CHF each.
You need to consider that we all live in Switzerland, so no travel costs are included in this budget. However, we treated ourselves with a quite expensive stay and dinner the evening before starting the trail.
CASH OR CARD?
The Sentiero Alpino Calanca is a CASH ONLY type of trekking, as the stay in the huts can be payed only in cash at Capanna Buffalora. Therefore, make sure you have enough cash (CHF) with you before starting this adventure!