The Great Outdoors

Welcome back to another episode of A'lil Hoohaa's photo blogging challenge. This month's theme is The Great Outdoors. 

Luckily in October it is our fall break from school as well as our family vacation. Usually we would go to North America, but since this was not going to happen this year, we visited a couple Swiss travel bucket list items. 

Meet ‚Napa‘, the 14yo former circus 🎪 bear at Arosa Bear 🐻 Sanctuary.
Great activity for visitors of all ages. We learned a lot about how bears live, eat and hibernate.

Scenic drive from Bergün to La Punt, crossing the Albula Pass at 2,315 meters (= 7,595 feet)

Via Mala (Romansh: literally, "bad path") is a narrow gorge along the river Hinterrhein between Zillis-Reischen and Thusis, as well as the ancient and notorious pathway which traverses the gorge. Historically the Viamala was the most serious obstacle on the approach to the Splügen and San Bernardino mountain passes

The Rhine Gorge was created about 10,000 years ago by a rockslide, the gorge walls reach heights of up to 300 meters = 985 feet. In its depths, the Upper Rhine winds its way for 14 kilometers = 8.7 miles. It is fed from Lake Toma at the Oberalp Pass, the Rhine's official source. From there it is exactly 1,233 kilometres = 766 miles to its outlet in the North Sea near Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

All of the above sights are located in the canton of Graubünden or Grisons. We also spent some time in Valais, the Southwestern part of Switzerland, mainly to see the Earth Pyramids of Euseigne.

The earth cones are 10 to 15 meters = 32 to 50 feet high and most of them are protected by a rock lodged on the top. The cones were created in the end phase of the last Ice Age, about 80,000 to 10,000 years ago.

These were my five - I hope you've enjoyed them. Considering I am not the outdoorsy type, I think I did pretty great.

What have you been up to this month? Let me know in the comments below.

Please head over to A'lil Hoohaa's blog and check out my fellow bloggers' contributions.

Happy Halloween!