Beckenried - Pilatus Kulm

We got up fairly early for our final day of good weather. We walked to the bus stop, caught the bus to Stans, a train to Hergiswil, another train to Alpnachstad, and then the mountain railway to Pilatus Kulm. This is billed as the steepest cogwheel railway in the world, and the trip up takes about half an hour. Views are great - scenic looking down, and amazing looking up at where we're heading.

This is the halfway point where the trains can pass. The downhill trains wait for the uphill trains to go past; then they can continue their descent.

You can see the trains ahead of us in the upper left and right of the photo.

And you can see the train below us, too.

Pilatus Kulm (2132m) has some spectacular views. Although it was clear today, visibility wasn't total as there was a lot of mist and haze. We walked up to the closest lookout first.

The Alpine Choughs are amenable to hand-feeding. One landed on my hand at one point. We gave them Honey Smacks.

Then we headed for the next lookout, only to find that it was closed and the path led to a very steep staircase through the rock to a walking trail to we don't know where. Caelli and I are in the middle of the first photo.

Back to Pilatus, where a couple of chaps were playing alphorns.....

......and the paragliders were taking off.

Then off to the Esel lookout. It was a very windy path (no breeze - just bends), and many of the steps were quite wet. 

This chap was free climbing up the side of the peak. It's steeper than it looks in the photo. Much steeper.

Views from the top were spectacular, particularly over the Vierwaldstättersee and the Berner Oberland.

And lovely views on the way down again.  Can you spot Caelli and Phil?

We caught the gondola down from Pilatus. There are three separate sections. The first, to Fräkmüntegg, is in a large gondola. At Fräkmüntegg, there is a high ropes course and a summer toboggan run. You can see the toboggan track in this photo, taken from the gondola up near Pilatus.

We had two goes each on the toboggan course, which is 1350 metres long.

At the bottom, they hook you on to a ski lift and you get pulled up backwards.  Views are great!

Back on the next gondola for the two-part journey down to Kriens (a suburb of Luzern). These gondolas take 4 people each and run continuously.

Lots of wildflowers in the meadows on the way down.

From Kriens, we caught a bus to Luzern, then a train to Hergiswil, another train to Stans and the bus back to Beckenried. Huge difference in temperature between the lakeside towns and the mountain areas. A very pleasant 10 degrees in the sun on the mountain, and it makes 25 degrees at lake level seem like it's sweltering. The next three days we are expecting rain, storms and other horrible things. We're planning on spending at least one of these nasty days on boats.