When I was in Paris one of my roommates had been in Lucerne fairly recently, and was bemoaning the fact that the "Golden Circuit" of Mt. Pilatus wasn't running yet because not enough snow had melted from the peak. It turns out this circuit usually opens sometime in May, and it just so happens that it only opened up this year about a week ago. The circuit consists of a 90 minute boat ride from one side of Lake Lucerne to the other, followed by a cog train up the mountain. There's a bit of a hike to get from the train to the summit, but it's not a very challenging one. Then you take a gondola down the opposite slope, switch to a smaller cable car that almost takes you all the way down to Lucerene, and finally a short bus ride to get you back to Lucerene city center. Obviously the fact that not much of the effort to the ascent is mine is what made it the easy way, although I managed to find a way to make it a bit more exciting. I was doing this trip first as a bit of a scouting mission to get a better feel for the terrain and distances involved before I hike up one of the other mountains. The fact that the vehicles along the way were so diverse and interesting and the scenery was, well, impressive made the trip really fun even if I was cheating to get there. I'll break things down in a bit more detail.
First a bit of history. The summit of Pilatus is around 7000 ft. As far as mountains of the Alps go, it's far from the tallest, but it's certainly one of the biggest in the immediate area. It's apparently named Pilatus because it was rumored that Pontious Pilate was buried on it - and most fun of all, in the middle ages there was said to be a dragon living near the summit. Pilatus still uses a little dragon logo for all its tourism endeavors. For the actual tour, as I said, it started with a boat ride around Lake Lucerne. 90 minutes might seem like a long time to travel from one side of a mountain to the other side, but it bounced around at other ports along the lake to drop off some people and pick up others.
Once we got to the town on the other side of the lake it was time for the cog train. The Pilatus cog train proudly declares that it is the steepest cog train route in the world, ascending/descending at a 47 degree angle. The cog train was pretty neat because it wound between cliffs and tunneled through parts, but it gave me a really good idea of what a hike up would be like.
As that last picture suggests, the view was breathtaking. There was a compound at the top with a gift shop and cafe, but I had no interest in any of that. I walked the paths up to the summit, and was on the look out for something interesting to explore. There were visible trails along the slopes, but I didn't have tons of time since the last gondola headed down around 5:30, and I wasn't really equipped for anything too crazy. I had my messenger bag with me, which had my coat in it, and balance was a bit of an issue. There was one lonely church by a cliff a fair distsance down that had a big cross standing over this massive drop, and I was thinking about heading to it as something I was pretty confident I could get to and back from with the time I had. Then I heard some other people talking about seeing ibix, and suddenly I had a new goal. I asked them where they'd seen ibix, and they said that it was down slope from the very same church I had been considering, but that they could only see them with binoculars. They pointed me in the general direction, and I was off.
(That white building is the church. If you look closely you can see the cross above it, standing over a big drop)
The descent was a bit tricky. Balance was an issue as I said, and there were patches of snow, and wet rocks since all the snow is melting. I had a few small slips (and drew the first blood of the trip - surprised I made it this long!) but progress was steady without any real setbacks. As I wandered around the church looking down I spotted the group of animals I was pursuing. After a bit of maneuvering I got to a grassy slope that would take me down to where they were. It was pretty slow going as the ground was covered in loose rocks, but the grass gave good anchors. I took pictures periodically because I was afraid I'd spook the ibix when I got closer and they'd take off before I could get any pictures. I found a nice little perch across a band of snow from them and took some pictures. I could have gotten in closer I think, as they didn't seem too nervous about me, but I was close enough to take pictures and I didn't want to disturb them (and was also checking the time to make sure I still had enough time to make it back up). Anyway, here they are: alpine ibix, also known as capricorns!
As I climbed back up the grassy slope I stopped to take a picture of the view back down the mountain to Lucerne. You can also see the gondola that would take me back down the first 1/3 of the mountain. It's quite the drop.
The climb back up was probably faster than getting down was, but more tiring. I was sweating pretty good by the time I was back to the fenced in part, but still had 20 minutes to spare by the time I got to the gondola. The gondola ride was more gorgeous views, and then about a third of the way down it stops at an activity complex for kids that was just closing down for the evening. I switched to a much smaller cable car that I had to myself and enjoyed the rest of the descent down.
All in all, a very fun day. I feel fine right now, and I really didn't put too much strain on my body today, but I'll see how I feel in the morning before deciding which day to do my hiking trip on. From what I've been told, Pilatus has the better view, but this other mountain I'm eyeing has the better scenery, so it sounds perfect for hiking. The weather tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful again too.
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