Hiking: Stöckalp to Engelberg (aka The Four Lakes Hike)

Yesterday there was not a cloud in the sky and the temperatures were just right for another gorgeous hike. And the benefit of Martin working in a lab with 25 other people is that there are always people ready and willing to go hiking with us. This time we took two graduate students: Julian, who shares an office with Martin, and Nick (from Brazil, not to be confused with Nick from the US whom we have gone hiking with the past two times).

I'm not sure how long the hike was but I'm guessing 9-10 miles. Not too much uphill but a ton of downhill so that I'm pretty sore today. Downhill is *always* worse than uphill. Anyway, let's get to some pictures. Here's lake #1, which was right where we started the hike:



And here is Titlis, the snowy peak off in the distance in the center of the picture. It's one of the more well-known mountains in Switzerland and I'm pretty sure you can ski on it year-round as there was a gondola running to the top of it while we were hiking (and some ski tracks down it). Unfortunately I think this is the only picture we took of Titlis and it's not that great since it's so far away:



Just kidding, here's another pic of Titlis from a little closer but of course it's still into the sun so it's not that great. The sun angle was bad for almost every picture I took on this hike:



Lake #2, which was right next to lake #1:





Julian, Martin, and Nick, having some sort of discussion. This was my view for most of the hike as they were always way ahead of me:



Nick, enjoying the view:



Lake #3, with Titlis above Nick's head:



This lake had the nicest blue-green color so far but I think it's just that the angle of the sun on it was more direct.



Taking a brief water break ... that's lake 3 down below us now.



Lunchtime, at the top of the pass. Behind the guys are patches of fresh snow from the day before when it was much cooler up here:



The restaurant at the top. We passed a ton of restaurants on this hike, and you could have gotten almost anywhere we went by chair lift or gondola. We of course did not take any of those and walked the entire hike instead.



Finally lake #4 is in sight:



The guys by lake #4:



This is where the four lakes hike ends, but we of course decided instead of taking the gondola into Engelberg to instead hike 2 hours down to Engelberg. We got some nice views along the way and saw some cows too of course but we didn't take any pictures of the cows as they were a little too close for comfort (i.e. sitting in the middle of the trail).