Fil de Cassons

Until 2015, a cable car made the Fil de Cassons accessible to skiers in the Flims-Laax area. There are already big plans for a futuristic replacement cable car. However, in the meantime, the superb south-southwest slopes of the Fil de Cassons are much quieter, making them an interesting goal for a ski tour.

Though there is snow all the way down to the village, the Flims side of the ski area has not opened yet. To make the tour still more peaceful, we pick the ascent route through the scenic Bargis valley.


The Bargis bus does not start its winter season until the 23rd of December. Since the Bargis road is not open to regular traffic, we have to park past Fidaz at P. 1241. On skis, we follow the forrest path up towards Bargis. There are signs that forbid skiing downhill here, both on the forrest path as well as on the road. Bad luck if you are descending to Bargis when the bus is not running...

The valley beyond Bargis is very flat for the first 2km, after which the wide path climbs gradually, with a couple of turns, to the pretty meadows of La Rusna. The official ski descent route stays on the south side of the valley between the Fuorcla Raschaglius and La Rusna. For our ascent, we roughly follow the summer hiking path instead. (Note: you should make a slight detour along the stream between the hut at P. 1861 and the footbridge at P. 1887 - we accidentally cut through the wildlife protection area slightly.) The summer hiking path makes a significant detour in an ascent which is already quite long anyway. Yet, this side of the valley is certainly the prettier and sunnier side. At ca. 2100m, a steep traverse can be tricky (we went on foot for ca. 10m to be on the safe side) and requires stable snow. This is the only place where the route reaches a PD / WS grade, otherwise everything is F / L.

I thought that I was in pretty good shape after a busy summer season. But ski touring apparently doesn't quite use the same muscles as hiking... My thighs are cramping quite badly at this point. I only manage a snail's pace and take ages for the last 400m of ascent to the Fuorcla Raschaglius. The ridge from the saddle to the Fil de Cassons does not have enough snow (all blown away) and the slopes down towards the Plaun Segnar Sura also have too many rocks sticking out. There is no way to avoid hiking up to the Fil de Cassons with the skis attached to the backpack (another 120m of ascent, T2). The Fil de Cassons summit plateau is large enough for my mate and me to completely lose each other for a couple of minutes.

The descent on the south-southwest slopes of the Fil de Cassons is a dream... at least for those who are better skies are don't have their legs burning. Yet even I manage to enjoy the downhill a little. We find a completely untouched powder slope for the first 500m of descent. Lower down, a some more lines have already been drawn in the snow. At Tarschlims, the fun is over, as we have to follow an "under construction" ski run for a while. We then traverse east towards Flims Dorf, where a ride has been arranged to take me back up to my car at Fidaz.