Pilatus

The other reason for visiting Luzern was Pilatus, a small (7,000 feet) peak west of town, but one of Europe's great mountain landmarks. My interest in Pilatus is four-fold: 1) view from the summits; 2) regard for Pontius Pilate, whose spirit allegedly dwelled near the summit (it was Pilate who asked, philosophically, "what is truth?," then went on to other things); 3) on Pilatus, supersitions about mountains began to fade after visits, in the 1700s, to the summit demonstrated that no one dwelled there and nothing bad came of climbing; 4) Wagner climbed Pilatus; 5) I wanted the exercise, but did not properly calculate the 5600 feet descent. Five-fold. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

OK, I took the cog-wheel train to the saddle

at the top; it is the world's highest-angle

cog-gtrain, 48 degrees at the top; depicted a

bove is how it works

The train; note its terraced structure; had I walked up, I

would not have arrived till mid-afternoon, when everything

had clouded up

Morning view, Lake Luzern below

Lucerne below

Tomlishorn, the western-most, and, I think, highest

summit of Pilatus

Tribschen and the Wagner Museum, center

But the glorious thing about Pilatus is that, on a clear

morning, such as this, you can see, not all that far away,

the whole of the Berner Alps: here, the Finsteraarhorn,

the Schreckhorn, the Weisshorn, others we camped

below in Grindelwald

Summit schema from Esel, the eastern summit of Pilatus

And, snowy in the middle, the Monch, then the Eiger, its

north face in shadow, and then the Jungfrau; totally

exhiliarating!

Looking from the Tomlishorn to the central summit

(mostly Japanese turbuss-folk), and then the Esel; I

climbed the Esel and Tomlishorn, but skipped the

crowded middle

Looking down from the Tomlishorn, toward Luzern,

trails and a high chapel

It's all well above tree-line, but not above flower-line; the

whole trail around the summits is covered in flowers and

in flower labels

Looking down toward the descent trail, 5600 feet...

Down the trail, looking back up toward Esel and the

central summit (hotel, restaurants, gift shoppes, etc.)

And, click to enlarge, a little red train about to enter the

48 percent grade

I got back down by 4pm, had a Cailliers ice cream bar, thanks to Vicki, and we headed on past Luzern to a lay-by in extreme eastern Switzerland