Day 7: Mount Pilatus
The weather forecast had improved dramatically overnight, so we decided to attempt a trip up Mount Pilatus. A few different local legends about the origin of the name exist. One claims that Pilatus was named so because Pontius Pilate was buried there. However, a similar legend is told of a mountain in Italy. Another is that the mountain looks like the belly of a large man, Pilate, lying on his back and was thus named for him. The name may also be derived from "pileatus", meaning "cloud-topped." (that's my bet). We elected to do the "Golden Round Trip", a popular route involving taking a boat from Lucerne across the lake to Alpnachstad, going up on the cogwheel railway, coming down on the aerial cableways and panorama gondolas, and taking a bus back to Lucerne. At the recommendation of the concierge at the hotel, we went in reverse to avoid the crowds.
It started out overcast, but we saw a few blue holes in the sky so we had our fingers crossed.
After the 20 min. bus ride to Kriens, we took a short, uphill walk to the gondola to Fräkmüntegg, which was not a big hit with Molly. We got her hopes up when we got off (mistakenly) at the halfway station, only to have to get her back onto another car moments later.
For some of us, the trip up was very relaxing with the only sound heard, other than whimpering, was the wind and cow bells below.
The final leg was via a tram, on which Molly felt much more comfortable.
I'm glad we listened to the concierge, because the tram was empty in this direction.
The top of the mountain was a bit chillier than the valley floor.
There was a cave system that we walked through for beautiful views of the valley.
The top of the mountain had a huge visitors' center with several restaurants, a gift shop, and even a hotel.
An older (than us) Swiss man was demonstrating the Alpenhorn and I had a nice conversation with him, all in German! I even understood most of his explanation of how to blow the Alpenhorn, though I doubt I could do it. The horn is 3.5 meters long, over 10 feet!
After the concert, we began our ascent to the highest point on Mt. Pilatus, Tomlishorn at 6,983 feet
Dave had plowed ahead at one point and was fortunate to stumble across an ibex. He was quick enough to fire off a shot just as the ibex darted off over the crest of the hill out of site. All that we got to experience was the ibex scat :(.
The wildflowers were beautiful, and was astounding how they could grow in such a harsh environment. Chat GPT was again very helpful in identifying them.
Jeri and took another short but steep climb to the top of the Oberhaupt where we had some amazing views of lake Luzern and the valley.
After our hike, we had a light lunch at one of the restaurants (soup and a strudel to share for about $20) and then boarded the cog rail for the return to the valley floor. The Pilatus cog railway is one of the oldest cog railways opened in 1889, and is the steepest in the world at 48% grade.
The rain held off all day, and there was quite a bit of blue sky and sun which made the boat trip up Lake Luzern to the city very pleasant.
Tomorrow we are off to Innsbruck to meet Rich and Suzanne.
