The Road Goes Ever On

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Ascent of Zugspitze

Zugspitze in the morning; the summit is the far left peak

As with Pilatus, and for the same reasons, I took the cable-car up

Climbers on the huge Austrian face of Zugspitze

The mountain is shared by Germany and Austria, the

sloping side Germany's, the sheer side, Austria's

It is Germany's highest peak, and therefore its highest

bier-garten

9:30 in the AM; breakfast of champions

I had coffee, melange, on the more sedate

Austrian side

After climbing to the summit; interestingly,

to get to the summit of Zugspitze, you have

to abandon the comforts of restaurant,

visitor center, and bier-garten, and

And actually climb a bit, the last 100 feet or

so, unprotected, like these folks are doing

I gave serious thought to blowing this one off...the

exposure was terrific, but there was iron-mongery to hold

on to, and, hey, it cost 30 euros to ride that cable-car up..;

summit self-portrait

The summit mast

Other views from the top

Lermoos, Austria, below

And looking east into the Tyrol

The rest of the summit area

Tirol

We drove on from Fussen into the Tirol and headed straight, as well as mountain roads afford, for Ehrwald, at the Austrian foot of the Zugspitze, the big mountain in this area, and Germany's tallest.

Approaching Ehrwald, almost like the Tetons

Ehrwald cattle drive, probably staged for tourists

Alpenglow on Gruenstein

Ditto on Zugspitze; the summit is the farthest peak left

Gruenstein again

Typical Tirolean mountain view

And a field view, hay-sheds everywhere

From Switzerland, we crossed into western Austria, then, avoiding the toll-roads, into Germany, Fussen, and the Koenig Schlosses, the castles of mad King Ludwig, who was, certainly, mad, but also Wagner's royal friend and benefactor; for a while.... We had visited them in 1989, so settled for a mere drive-by shooting.

Hohenschwangau in its Alpine setting

Closer up

Closer up still

And Neuschwanstein, a mile or two away

Closer-up; Ludwig had this thing about Schwans, from

Wagner, mostly; said now to have been inspired by

Disney...

Pretty Fussen, where we also had the good luck of finding

a water pump to replace our leaking Shurflo model 2088; I

installed it immediately

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.

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.

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

Cruise on Lake Luzern; Sort of...

Our most interesting drive, so far...

Switzerland consists very largely of mountains and lakes,

and occasionally they have to build roads out over the

lakes in order to accommodate the mountains, as above

Some repair was needed on this stretch, so the road was

detoured, on pontoons, well out into the lake, for a quarter-

mile or more

Like so

Vicki did not freak-out; well, only a little...but then we had

to do it on the way back, too

Richard Wagner Museum Luzern

One of the reasons we visited Luzern was the Wagner museum, in Tribschen, on the lake, now a city park area. Wagner spent most of his many years in exile from Germany in Switzerland, and 1866-72 in Tribschen. The house he lived in is now the museum, and it has many important artifacts.