Sunday, September 11, 2011

Hiking: Klausen Passhöhe to Eggberge



Yesterday we had another beautiful sunny day! Therefore we went hiking. We were unsure where to go as our next few choices for hikes either require an overnight stay somewhere or they are only open on Sundays (which is stupid, in my opinion) so at the last minute we chose a hike that was pretty long but not too challenging in terms of ascent and descent. Though the hike was continuously going over rolling hills so we were almost always walking uphill or downhill but it was rarely steep.

Here's a picture from the start of the hike. We realized that we could have started the hike one more bus stop away and shortened it by a mile but that wouldn't have been any fun.



This first bit of the trail was not well maintained so we were just walking through grass and along a cow path and streambed that made it very muddy and gross. I picked my way along trying not to sink in too much while Martin barreled through saying to me "You're wearing hiking boots just walk right through it." And look where that got him:



He stepped in mud and cow excrement up to his socks! This was a mere five minutes into the hike ... and five minutes later after he had walked a bit and smeared it all over his pant legs he decided he was hot and had to change into his shorts which required him to untie his boots and take them off which resulted in cow manure being spread everywhere since he then had it on his hands. Pretty awesome.

Anyway, some more pictures from the hike.











Here's a glacier in the distance:



A short break at a restaurant for some iced tea:



Only about an hour left of hiking at this point. This picture is looking back in the direction we had come from ... we walked around a lot of ridges so of course you can't see where we started from but it's about 11 miles away in this direction.





Lake Lucerne down below:



Little house in the middle of nowhere:



There were also lots of cows on this hike. They were everywhere! I can't believe I didn't take a ton of pictures of them because they were the really pretty cows ... I don't remember their name but they're a light creamy brown and they have little horns and they're known for being the best looking cows in Switzerland. I meant to take a few pics at the end because there were cows gathered around the cable car station where we had to catch the cable car back to town but the cable car was ready to go when we got there so I didn't have time for pictures. Next time I will get some cow pictures.