5-Lake Trailrun

Length: 21.1km
Duration: 4:56hr
Elevation gain: 1'474m
Elevation loss: 1'475m

The 5-Lake Hike is a popular and very beautiful hike in Pizol, Switzerland that travels past 5 beautiful glacier lakes. The original route is 10km long and we decided to make a longer loop around it that encompasses the 5-lake hike. We did the route on Oct 12th, 2019 and it was already snowing on higher elevations, however the weather was predicted to be super sunny. As the hike travels to elevations of up to 2'500m, it is advised to always check the conditions before. We actually got a bit surprised ourselves by how much snow there was on higher elevations and especially on the sections facing north. As the weather was super sunny, there were a lot of people on the trail, especially going towards the first and most impressive lake. By the time we reached that, most people turned around to go back to the mountain huts.

We took the Gondola up to Furt. For the original route, people continue on with two other Gondolas to Gaftia and then to Pizolhütte. However, we decided to get some ascent meters into our workout and got off at Furt to hike up to the second Gondola stop. This sections goes from 1'460m to the station at 1'869m along a well marked tracked and passes beneath the Gondola a couple of times. It was around 9:15am when we started the trail and in shadowy places it was really cold. Fortunately, we had to go up and this warmed us up.

Once we were at Gaftia, we further hiked up to Pizolhütte at 2'221m. From here the original trail starts and soon there were many people around us. The hike up to the first lake, Wildsee at 2'435m, was quite steep with at least 10cm of snow on the trail. People were moving very slowly, especially because there were many families with smaller children on the trail. When we reached Wildsee, I was stunned, the lake and the scenery is just breathtaking. The water is so blue. In the back you can see the mountain Pizol at 2'844m.

From Wildsee you descend down towards Schottensee at 2'332m. The descend was fairly steep and icy, as it was facing North. You had to be very careful not to slip and I wished I had brought my micro-spikes, these would've been so handy on this section. Nevertheless, we moved slowly and reached the lake without falling. Once we passed the lake it was going up another pass before descending down to Schwarzsee at 2'372m. This lake was my favourite one as the background was beautifully mirrored into the lake and it was super empty on this section.

The rest of the trail was mostly going down passing another, quite unimpressive lake before we got back to the Gaftia Gondola station. From there we didn't want to take the same route down towards Furt Gondola station but decided to take another, bit longer route down. This section was not covered in snow, and the sun was starting to burn. We changed into short clothes for the rest of the run, as there was no wind, pure sun and it was getting super warm.

We made it back to the Furt station in under 5hrs and were super happy about this wonderful trailrun.