Mt Pilatus with Christina

 Today we did the Golden circle loop. The trip was to the top of Mt Pilatus which is in one of the more northern peaks in the Alps. The movie “Planes Trains and Automobilea” comes to mind excepts our route was Boat train gondola and bus with a little walking in between. Lots of pictures today that will do most of the story.

This is the KKL which is the performance hall and convention center in Luzern. The amazing thing is the roof uses the engineering of a suspension bridge. There are 7000 square meters of suspended roof without supports. It is quite dramatic when standing underneath. We started the first leg of our trip today by getting on a water ferry. We road from Lucern to Alpnachstad. There we transitioned to a cog rail train. This is the worlds steepest cog train. It was initially built over 2 summers 400 days by 600 men opening in 1889. The rail reaches inclines of almost 50%. Along the way we saw hikers and cows. It took about 45 minutes to climb 6000 feet in elevation.

This is the last year of the current train cars. The first ones were steam driven and used from 1889 to the 1930s. At that time the steam trains were replaced by electric trains. These trains are still in use until the end of this summer, next year new trains will be introduced. 

You can actually hike up to the top of the mountain. It requires climbing about 6000 ft of elevation over. 6-8 miles. Our guide Christina said she and her husband did it for the first time a few weeks ago and it took her 6 hours to climb up the mountain. Maybe if we come back sometime in the future we could try the hike.

It is an AMAZING view at the top. Looking north you see an expansive plain that is the farm lands of Switzerland. Looking south you see the Alps. The haze obscured things a bit but you can see Mt Eiger. Which is famous for the difficult north wall for mountain climbing. At the top of Mt Pilatus are two hotels which amazingly are open year round. Only accessible by the gondola during the winter. Looking at the hotel it make you think of a James Bond evil villain hide away. 

The Gondola ride is actually in two parts. First is the large rapid Gondola which drops you about 1/3 of the way down in about 3 minutes. There is a sports park with zip lines, and rope course at that point. Finally when off the gondola we walked about 1/2 mile to a bus stop. From there we rode back to our hotel area. It was a beautiful day. We were worried about rain today but we stayed dry and could see great distances. We are hoping for a good amount of rain tonight and tomorrow to raise the levels of the Rhine river which are quite low.

For those thinking of doing the Golden circle it is a trip that you could do on your own…the only issue is the anxiety of making sure you knew your next step and where you need to go. We greatly enjoyed our guide Christina who kept us from the fear of being Not Quite Lost!

Dale and Ila