WANDERWEG REFUGE TO REFUGE IN THE SWISS ALPS: Many high Alpine rifugio tend to nestle in the most unlikely of spots. Peter Aigner contemplates the fastest way to traverse centuries of cow paths to get to the end-ofthe- day radler. Photo: Hansi Johnson

Photo Essay

WANDERWEG

Refuge to Refuge in the Swiss Alps

My cousin Margaret married an adventurous soul from Germany named Peter. Their family resides on the German side of the Alps. Peter, a passionate fly angler, is not afraid of a little suffering if it means access to good fishing. Last season I met him in Munich and we fished our way south through the verdant, glacier-rimmed Engadin Valley of Switzerland. Several times we fished the River Inn that carves through the valley. The River Inn was deep, cold and fast with the start of the high Alpine thaw, and we had to work hard to get our presentations as low as possible.

Despite my history with Italy (due to my father’s years of service in the U.S. Air Force, I was born in the foothills of the Italian Alps) and Peter’s much better local language skills, we ran headlong into the language barrier when we arrived in northern Italy after fishing our way there by way of the Engadin. Our plans for the Italian side of our itinerary were quashed—the trout season in Italy, it seemed, opened a week later than we had anticipated, something our contact in Chiavenna, Italy, had failed to impart to us. This contact plied us with two shots of grappa and an apology, and with no hard feelings we hit a corner espresso bar to formulate our plan B.


Subscribe for access to this article plus the entire archive of The Flyfish Journal content—and receive a discount on products.

CLOSE

The FlyFish Journal Mailing List

We respect your time, and only send you the occasional update.