★ Engadin Skimarathon

01Warum es relevant ist

It is the Engadin's own event rather than a fixture imported into it. The Skimarathon has run since 1969, belongs to the Worldloppet series and is the reason the valley's cross-country network - among the most extensive in the Alps - exists at the scale it does. In our reading, its significance in the social calendar is different in kind from the other Engadin events: Snow Polo and White Turf bring an audience to St. Moritz, and this brings 13,500 participants who are the event. It closes the valley's winter in the way the polo opens it, and it is the most accessible thing in the entire St. Moritz year - anyone who can ski 42 kilometres can enter.

02Die Woche darum

The second week of March is the end of the Engadin's high season and the point at which the valley's own community reclaims the winter. Marathon Week fills the villages between Maloja and S-chanf with skiers and their families rather than the January resort crowd, hotel rates fall from their February peak, and the alpine skiing on Corviglia and Corvatsch is at its best of the year, with long days and reliable snow. On race Sunday the valley road is closed in stretches, the trains between St. Moritz, Pontresina and Zuoz run to a special timetable and are the way everybody moves, and the crossings of Lake Sils and Lake Silvaplana are lined with spectators. It is entirely free to watch, from anywhere along the course. The best vantage points are the lake crossings early in the morning, the climb into the Stazerwald where the field stretches out, and the finish at S-chanf, which is a small village handling an enormous afternoon.

03Anreisezeitpunkt

Racers arrive Friday or Saturday for bib collection and to ski a section of the course in daylight. Spectators need only the Sunday, but the Saturday is worth having for the women's race and for a day on the alpine slopes before the valley fills. Leave Monday: Sunday evening trains out of the valley after the finish are the busiest of the year.

04Unterkunft

The whole valley is the venue, which changes the logic. Pontresina, at the half-marathon finish and the marathon village, is the most practical base and has a large hotel stock. St. Moritz is more expensive and no more convenient. Samedan, Celerina, Zuoz and S-chanf put you at the finish end and on the railway. Sils and Silvaplana are at the start end, which suits racers who want a short transfer to Maloja on the morning. Anything on the Rhaetian Railway line works, because the train is how everyone travels on race day.

05Zugang und Hospitality

Watching costs nothing and needs no ticket; the course runs through public land and along the valley for its whole length. Entry to the races is by online registration through the organizer, in waves allocated by declared or previous finishing time, with entries opening months ahead and the field capped. The organizer's own website could not be reached from this environment, so no entry fee, cut-off or capacity figure is stated here - consult engadin-skimarathon.ch directly.

06Wo das gesellschaftliche Geschehen stattfindet

The marathon village at Pontresina during the week; the finish area at S-chanf on the Sunday afternoon; the lake crossings and the Stazerwald for spectators. In the evenings, the hotel bars and restaurants of Pontresina, Samedan and Celerina do more of the work than St. Moritz does, because this is a participants' week rather than a resort one. The valley's cross-country trail network, more than 200 kilometres of it, is the real social space of the days before the race.

07Anreise

08Praktische Hinweise

09Geschichte

The first race was run in 1969 with 945 participants, on the natural snow of the valley floor, and grew through the 1970s and 1980s into a European mass event as touring and skating spread through cross-country skiing. It has been part of Worldloppet since that series began, which brings a standing international field alongside the Swiss and German majority. The course has been essentially the same for decades: what has changed is scale, timing infrastructure and the wave-start system needed to move a field of this size out of a village at the head of a valley.

10Wer ist dort

Cross-country skiers above all - Swiss and German in the majority, with entries from more than sixty nations, ranging from elite Worldloppet racers to first-timers, and a very large contingent of clubs and families. Spectators are the valley's own residents and the participants' families. This is not a corporate or brand-driven fixture and it does not pretend to be.