Mount Pilatus

On our first weekend in Switzerland we took a day trip from Zurich to Lucerne to see Mount Pilatus. I researched online the best way to get there and decided on a combination trip, i.e. taking a boat ride from Lucerne to Alpnachstad, riding the cogwheel train from there to Pilatus, then taking a cable car down to Kriens, and finally going back to Lucerne on a regular city bus. The whole thing is called a Golden Round Trip, and tickets for that tour can be bought at one of the tour operators in Lucerne. It was quite easy and painless. Tickets are sold opposite Lucerne’s train station. We showed our Swiss Half Fare passes and got a 50% discount. The piers were also nearby.

The boat trip was pleasant and views were good but unremarkable, so no pictures from the boat trip here. When we got off the boat in Alpnachstad, we were rushed by guides to get into a line to board the cogwheel train. This was a point in time for me when I started to appreciate the Swiss way of organizing things. Everything on that trip was designed to guide tourists through the process as smoothly as possible, so they could get to the top of the mountain and back fast and efficiently.

We boarded the world’s steepest cogwheel train and started to enjoy the ride. We thought that we got lucky with the weather too. It was sunny and clear with just some clouds. Views improved a lot as well.

However, the further up we went, the worse the weather became. Thick clouds started to show up at the top of the mountain.

Finally, we got to the top of the Mount Pilatus and saw… almost nothing. It was cold and cloudy outside — because we were inside the cloud. We looked around, and there was nothing to look at. Below is a stand with the view that we were supposed to see but couldn’t because of the clouds.

We had a choice to go down or wait some time in the hope of a better weather. Since we spent considerable effort to get on the top of Pilatus, we decided to wait. We went inside the welcome center and had some coffee and pies. After about 40 minutes we noticed some improvements. Actually, Alex noticed a cable car outside of the window (it was so foggy before so we did not know there even was a cable car route outside that window).

We went outside again and this time we could see more. The clouds were still thick on one side of the mountain, but the other side cleared up a bit. We saw some people taking a walking path down the mountain. I would have loved to try that myself if I had more time.

There are several lookouts around Pilatus that are accessible by climbing a set of stairs.

We spent some time at the top of Esel to see if the weather would improve any further. It actually did. Many people were hanging out at the lookout waiting for the better views.

Finally we got some views which were somewhat underwhelming considering amount the of time we spent waiting for them. Plus they were all hazy.

Overall, I was disappointed with this trip. We spent half a day getting up and down Pilatus, and there is not a lot to see there in terms of views. On the way down, we stopped at Fräkmüntegg to change transportation from cable car to gondola. The views from Fräkmüntegg turned out to be much better than from the top of Pilatus because now we were just under the clouds.

At Fräkmüntegg, we tried a toboggan run, which is basically taking a sled down a hill (along the wavy groove in the photo above). It is the longest summer toboggan run in Switzerland, and it was a lot of fun to go down. Actually, it was also a lot of fun getting pulled back up by a rope attached to a cable. This last activity kind of saved this trip from being a total meh.