Day 56: Rigi

This morning I was feeling good and the weather was looking nice, so I decided it was time for phase 2. The destination this time was Mt. Rigi, which took another boat trip to get to. I had been told that Pilatus had the better views, but Rigi had the scenery - and Rigi is famous for hiking. It has a lot of trails on it, and unlike Pilatus which was largely snow and rock near the top, Rigi has rolling alpine meadows. I really wanted to hike Rigi from the base, but everybody I talked to said that it would take probably 4 hours of my limited time, much of which would just be going through forest, and advised I take one of the cable cars up and then hike around the top parts where the scenery was better. Rigi isn't so much a single mountain with one peak as a long stretch of peaks and valleys, and even starting from about midway in elevation from the top I spent the entire day going up and down as I worked my way along the trails, rarely having any flat stretches.

Part of why the scenery is so nice is that Rigi has great views of different parts of Switzerland. The north view, back towards Lucerne, is mostly flat and full of lakes, while the south view is dominated by long ranges of snow-covered mountains. These were my two favourite views I think, roughly down into the valley south of Rigi and facing west towards Lake Lucerne, with Lucerne to the right just out of sight. This second view especially I took like 20 pictures of from different places because it was overcast and the lighting kept changing a bit and I wasn't sure which would look best.

I ever recorded a video sweeping across the landscape with me describing which parts I've done things at, but my tablet won't seem to pick it up off my camera, so not sure if I'll be able to post it. I took the video along probably my favourite trail of the day - a trail that was in many places carved into the cliff face, with a huge drop off one side (it had a railing though). The drop meant that there were usually no trees obscuring the view, although it did get quite windy. I started hiking around 10:30, and caught the cable car back down around 5:30, so it was a pretty good hike. I was much better prepared this time as well. I brought my backpack with my hoodie and water, and even made a lunch to take along. After so many weeks of carrying all my things around, I don't even feel the backpack when it has so few things in it now.

To end, here's the new pants. I took the picture in a bit of an unfortunate place with the cable car thing marring the view, but I had to self take it, and it was the end of the day and I just didn't really care. At least the view is nice if you ignore that part of it.

I'm sure my legs will be a bit stiff tomorrow, so I'm planning to take it easy and spend more time in town. Sometimes the days I plan to take it easy turn into the craziest ones though, so who knows.