Pontresina

Switzerland · Upper Engadin · village at 1,805 m · skiing to 2,978 m · glacier

Summary

Pontresina is ten minutes from St. Moritz and nothing like it. It’s a mountain village at 1,805 m in Val Bernina, with nineteenth-century stone hotels, the Engadin’s longest village promenade and a history of alpinism, not shop windows.

It shares the lift pass with St. Moritz — meaning Corviglia and Corvatsch are included — but has its own two mountains right above: Diavolezza and Lagalb. And from Diavolezza comes down a glacier.

Technical data

Source: Corvatsch AG / Diavolezza Lagalb AG (corvatsch-diavolezza.ch) and pontresina.ch, consulted 21-08-2026.

Honest note: the lift company does not publish the number of kilometres or lifts on Diavolezza and Lagalb separately, so they don’t appear here. A made-up figure on a fact sheet ends up as a false promise in a quote.

The two home mountains

Diavolezza (2,978 m)

The east face of Piz Bernina, which at 4,048 m is the only mountain over four thousand metres in the eastern Alps. Opposite, Piz Palü.

What brings people here is the glacier descent: 8 km via the Pers and Morteratsch glaciers down to the valley. And the season, which opens mid-October and closes early May — nearly seven months, one of the longest in the Alps.

Up top there’s a mountain hut where you can sleep at 3,000 m, with a hot tub and sky with no town lights.

Lagalb

The mountain for those who already know what they’re doing, at Bernina Pass. Its black piste is, according to the lift company itself, the steepest tracked piste in Grisons canton, with an 86 % gradient.

Here is the Club 8848: to get in you have to accumulate 8,848 metres of vertical — Everest’s height — in eleven descents to the valley and four climbs on foot. It’s not soft marketing.

Location and access

Reference airport: Zurich. From there, train via Chur and Rhaetian Railway to Pontresina, without touching a car.

And from Pontresina leaves the Bernina line, declared a UNESCO World Heritage site: the train that crosses the Alps from Switzerland to Italy without a rack railway, between glaciers and palm trees on the same day.

Who it’s for

Intermediate and advanced skier: Diavolezza is high and long; Lagalb, demanding.

Anyone wanting to ski in October or May: Diavolezza is one of the few where that’s not a brochure promise.

Anyone wanting St. Moritz without the St. Moritz bill: same lift pass, same snow, ten minutes by train and a village that doesn’t live by shop windows.

Who it’s NOT for: absolute beginners and families with young children starting out. Diavolezza and Lagalb are not learning mountains. For that you have to go down to Corviglia.

How we sell it

Pontresina enters the catalogue for three concrete reasons:

1. The glacier and long season. 8 km of descent on ice and a calendar running October to May. Almost no one else has that.
2. You get there by train, and the train is the Bernina line. It fits with the house’s Swiss argument: from airport to doorstep without a car.
3. It solves the St. Moritz price objection without giving up its lift pass.

Fact sheet created 21-08-2026. Altitudes, glacier, season and Lagalb gradient verified against the lift company website (corvatsch-diavolezza.ch) and the destination site (pontresina.ch). The piste kilometres and number of lifts on Diavolezza and Lagalb are not published by the official source and therefore do not appear here. Lift pass rates for the 2026/27 season have not yet been published.