October 17, 2016 (Lucerne, Switzerland)

I’m jumping out of chronological order with this post, but I felt like posting it today.

The fog had rolled in and was completely covering Zurich by the time Grant and I got up and caught a tram to meet our friend in the center of town. We were a little worried that the fog would still be there when we started hiking but as it was still 9 in the morning, Grant thought it would burn off by noon.

After meeting up with our friend, we drove to a city called Lucerne, on the edge of the Swiss Alps. It was a peaceful and short 30 minute drive through mountain passageways and tunnels. The scenery wasn’t so visible as the mountain tops were obscured by the misty fog.

As we pulled out of the fourth tunnel, we came out onto a beautiful lake and valley vista nestled between 3 mountains. The scene took my breath away and I was super excited to be in the Swiss Alps.

We parked the car part way up Bürgenberg mountain and gathered our water bottles for the “easy” hike that was supposedly paved the whole way. Grant said it would be about 1 km until we got to our trailhead.

There was construction going on and so we maneuvered our way along a temporary walkway built to bypass the site. After about 10 minutes, we found ourselves surrounded by a lovely forest. Ah, our trail finally started as the sound of drills and a jackhammer began to fade away. Not completely at peace, mind you, the cacophony of city construction sounds were replaced by the clanging of Swiss cowbells, whose hosts were not visible from where we were, but seemed to reverberate quite efficiently off the walls of the valley.

As we came to a clearing, I could hear a couple of cowbells ringing louder, when I looked up and saw 2 cows eating grass on a slope just above my head. The bells were so loud that I could understand why alpine farmers used them, like ancient GPS, but I did feel a twinge of empathy for the cows also, whose slightest movements set the bells clanging.

The weather was great as the fog had burned off and everything was visible. It was cool enough that we felt cozy in our jackets and when are body temperatures rose as we climbed uphill, we didn’t sweat too much. We kept a nice and relaxed pace while we passed an old hotel that must have been there since the 1930’s, or so I fantasized. Little did we know we had completely missed our hiking turnoff. After about a half mile or so, we realized we needed to turn back around, lest we end up wrapping around the mountain and back to our car.

But we didn’t mind getting lost, we were all so mesmerized by the beautiful, postcard scene in front of us. After taking some photos above Lake Lucerne, we backtracked and found that our hiking trail continued just behind the hotel we had passed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trail markers on this hike had room for improvement as we again, missed our trail and continued up the mountain along a road that led to a row of farmhouses. Backtracking once more, we found our trail, which became a narrow dirt walking path that went straight through a cow paddock.

Because there was a horned bull standing right in our path in front of the gate to get through, we tried negotiating with it for safe passing. Even “Open Sesame” didn’t work so our friend suggested we jump over the electrified wire keeping the bull in. We found a low point in the fence and jumped over, then walked around the bull still standing in the middle of the trail. I could feel my heartbeat start to quicken as I figured at least 3 different directions to head in, to outrun a charging bull. Grant pulled me out of my strategizing pensivity when he proclaimed, “It has udders!”. I breathed a sigh of relief, ‘so maybe I wasn’t the only one who was a little worried’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we finally got up to the peak of the mountain, there was a little rest stop selling refreshments. And…. an elevator! The Hammetschwand Lift is the tallest free-standing elevator in the world. And as the wind was a little strong at the summit, I got butterflies in my stomach just looking off the side of the elevator platform. When we were finally ready to ride down, we just pushed the down button and sure enough, the glass elevator chugged up to us on cue.  We were a little nervous getting onto the elevator but the ride down was very smooth despite giving way to 1132 meters of nerve-wracking panoramic views. Finally the elevator stopped and let us out at the bottom of the lift, still halfway up the mountain, and we walked off with our legs still shaking and our bodies tremoring from the aftershock of nervous laughter. My friend turned to us and said, “Ein bisschen Adventeur!” (A little adventure!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we got off the lift, we hiked back to the car and reached it just in time for the rain to start pouring. It rained for the rest of the day.

 

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