For our last hoorah, Shannon, Corey, Lexie, Ibk, and I decided to take the train down to Lucerne, Switzerland for the weekend. Yes, it was the weekend before finals but who cares- we’re only in Europe once, right?
In order to save money, we took two night trains, which you’d think wouldn’t be too bad right? Wrong- they were awful. Every 30 minutes, they had to announce the next stop in the most loud obnoxious manner possible and they kept the cabin lights on the entire time. In addition, I don’t think the passengers next to us realized that it was 3 o’clock in the morning as they blared on and on with their conversation. Anyways, we got to Lucerne both exhausted and sore (from trying to get comfortable in hard seats. However, as soon as we got to Lucerne, my mood changed dramatically. Lucerne (Luzern in German) is a beautiful old walled city located on an lake emerald lake in the middle of the snow-capped Alps. After walking to our hostel, we went to grab breakfast from the local grocery store before embarking on our hike up Mount Pilatus, the 7000 ft peak which dominates the Lucerne skyline. From the very beginning, the hike was very steep, albeit absolutely gorgeous. Following Mrs. Adventurous Shannon, we went the wrong way through the forest which ended up adding about an hour to our trip, but the path was worth it. The entire way up to the “base” village, we had stunning views of Lake Lucerne down below, along with the other snow capped peaks off in the distance. After 2 hours of huffing it up the mountains, we reached the base village which was some 2000 ft higher than where we started. After stopping to catch our breath and drink some water (Corey and I were stupid and didn’t bring a bottle), the girls decided to take the gondola the rest of the way up. Corey and I decided we were going to make it up the entire mountain on our own power, so we split up. This was not before we all slid down a long spiral slide as the children we are, and scraped up our butts. Although it was fun, the injuries that I got from that slide were the worst injuries that I accrued during the entire 6000 ft climb! For the next hour, Corey and I sped up the mountain to the second and last village before the final 2500 ft ascent above the tree line to the summit. When we reached it, it took us a long time to find the path up the mountain, as it was a tiny little trail that seemed to lead to nowhere. As soon as we started, I knew why they labeled this part of the hike as experts only. The path consisted of massive boulders to climb over, and one misstep could have left me plunging off the cliff towards the ground below. To make things more challenging, about half way up, we reached the snow line. While it got more and more beautiful the higher we got up, it also got more difficult to traverse the mountain, especially with our lack of adequate equipment. After we had been climbing for about and hour and a half, we reached a large snowy bowl sandwiched in between two peaks. From here, we could clearly see the top, so I texted the girls (who were already at the top) that we were about 45 minutes out and were making good time. Boy was I wrong. In the bowl, Corey and I began crawling on all fours in order to not slip down the mountain. As I mentioned before, we were both severely lacking in equipment, and thus had no gloves (it was 80 degrees at the bottom of the mountain!!) In order to avoid the snow, Corey and I had the brilliant idea to climb up the face of the cliff to our right, on which all the snow had melted. From where we were, it didn’t seem too high and it seemed like the easier alternative. Again, we were wrong- for the next 20 or so minutes, we struggled up the cliff holding on to nothing but the occasional rock and this long grass. It seemed to go on and on, and my legs were burning like crazy, but I finally made it up some 800 vertical ft later. Looking down from the top of the ridge, I realized that if I had slipped at any point, I could have easily died. But hey, that’s all apart of the adventure, right!? Once on top of the ridge, we were greeted with quite possibly the prettiest views I have ever seen in my entire life. In every direction there were white capped mountains, with the deep blue lake far beneath us. However, my absolute astonishment was quickly brought to an end when I got a text from Shannon saying the last cable car left in 15 minutes. There was absolutely no way we were going to making up to the top in 15 minutes. Thus, Corey and I continued up the mountain at our own leisurely pace, and watched the last cable car go down, leaving us no choice but to hike all the way back down the mountain on our own. After gauging the time and our exhaustion, we decided that we should turn around short of our goal of reaching the summit, if we were to have any hope of getting back before it got dark. Only problem was, we had no idea how to get down safely, as the way we came up did not seem like an option due to heavy snow cover on a steep slope leading to a sheer drop off. Thus, Corey and I tried another path down the mountain that looked like it had less snow. Again, we were wrong. After hiking down for about 30 minutes, we reached heavy snow cover yet again, and completely lost track of the trail. By this time, we were running on fumes (we had only eaten a small breakfast) and we were out of water. We deliberated for another 20 minutes about what to do, Corey wanting to continue down and me wanting to go back up and go down the way we came up. In the end, I persuaded Corey to go back up the mountain to take the known trail down, no matter how dangerous it might be. Going back up took quite a long time, and we ate snow all the way up to keep ourselves hydrated. By the time we reached the place where we had been over an hour before, Corey and I began to discuss calling a rescue helicopter, as we were exhausted, slightly dehydrated, and did not know how and if we would make it down safely before dark. However, when I checked my phone, I realized the piece of junk was dead, and Corey had no service. Thus, we had no chose but to go down. Looking down the incredibly steep snowy bowl, full of large boulders and ice blocks, I could not believe what we were about to do. However, when I carefully began to crawl down the mountain, Corey and I realized it would be easier to just slide down on our butts like a sled. Now I don’t know really how dangerous this idea was, but it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. Here we were, thinking we were going to die up on top of the mountain 10 minutes before, sliding down the middle of an alpine snow bowl with seemingly fake views of the lake in front of us. We had to be careful to not get out of control, as the end of the bowl led into a cliff with a waterfall, but we made it to the safely down to end of the snow line, where we were able to follow a snowless trail the rest of the way down. Now I don’t know how we made it down running on the fumes that we were, but I guess the adrenaline powered “survival mode” kicked in. We reached the second village base camp just as the sun had begun to set, and although we were safely down the most dangerous part of the mountain, we still had a 2 hour hike ahead of us back to the bottom. Guided by Corey’s phone flashlight, we FINALLY made it down at around 10 at night, and stumbled into the hostel sore to no end. After a 12 hour/ 14 mile long hike with an total elevation change of 13,000 feet, we made it, and despite our near death experience, it was the most epic experience of my life. And boy did I sleep well that night.
The next morning, we all decided to take it easy and explore the city of Lucerne. It was another gorgeous day, and thus was a perfect day to roam around the city. We started out by chilling by the edge of Lake Lucerne, before walking across the “Capelle Brücke”, the oldest covered bridge in Europe. For the rest of the morning, we walked around the town, visiting the old cathedral and the old medieval wall. After stopping for a gelato lunch break (hey, I was healthy and got two fruit flavors), we headed back over to the edge of the lake where we rented a pedal boat. Once we had paddled into the center of the lake away from boat traffic, Shannon, Corey, and I decided to cool off by jumping into the lake. Words cannot describe how cold it was- I couldn’t breath as soon as I hit the water. As soon as we in the water, Lexie and Ibk who stayed in the boat decided it would be funny to pedal away leaving us stranded freezing in the middle of lake. Luckily, we had a meet some Swiss guys in a boat nearby, and they were nice enough to welcome us stranded refugees on their host. After about 30 seconds, the boat started to sink so we had to hop off, but the shelter was fun while it lasted. When we finally got back on our own boat, we relaxed in the sun for the next hour before heading back to the dock. Somehow, I did not get sunburnt even though I was in the water in 80 degree weather with no sunscreen... That evening, we took Ibk out to a Italian restaurant along the river for her birthday. All the dishes were over 20 Francs so we ended up all splitting, but it was a delicious way to end our delightful trip to Switzerland (and prepare for our uncomfortable 8 hour train ride back to Bonn 🙄🙄). All in all, Switzerland, along with Portugal, was my favorite country that I’ve visited this semester. I could never live there due to the absurd prices of everything, but I will most definitely return! Now time to buckle down for finals......
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