An epic hike...Stoos Switzerland, Oct 2009

With the trip to Nepal (see earlier post) just around the corner, we thought one last training hike in the Swiss Alps was appropriate.  Early one weekend morning the GF and I jumped in the car and headed south to the small ski village of Stoos.  It was reputed to have interesting topography with incredible views overlooking Lake Lucerne.

We were fortunate to have near perfect weather for this late fall hike.  I'd been here a few weeks earlier with a friend and we couldn't see anything due to a low cloud ceiling.  We left the car and started hiking up almost immediately.  After approximately 2 hrs of uphill trekking you make it to the top.  This is when the trail really gets exciting.

Once you've completed the approx 2 hr climb to the top, is a nice 5-4 hour stroll along the crest of this natural ridgeline

You see, Stoos requires you to hike along a natural spine of earth.  On the one side you get a rather steep descent into the bowl where you've parked your car 1000 of metres below.  On the other side, you have a steep cliff drop into the Lake of Lucerne which is even further down.  This can make for some pretty cagey walking at times but in typical Swiss fashion, these narrow parts are well secured.

This is a shot back at the trail as it works it's way along the ridge.  The car is parked at the bottom to the left, the Lake is down the cliff on the right of the ridge

Unfortunately, this is quite a popular walk because, if you're not training for a 4 week trekking vacation to Nepal, you can take a chair lift up to the top and simply walk from lift to lift.  By the time you've reached the far end of the spine, you had spectacular views over the many bays of Lake Lucerne.

One of the first views of Lake Lucerne. 

Almost at the end of the hike, you start to get an almost 360 degree view of the surrounding area

I couldn't imagine a better way to spend a beautiful day in Switzerland.  What's incredible is that, almost no matter where you go in Switzerland there are always people out taking advantage of this amazing country.  Shopping on Sunday's in Switzerland is not permitted and people still take full advantage of the day off.  Although when you first arrive this can seem inconvenient, there is no other single factor that adds to the high quality of life in this country.  People have an amazing amount of free time on their hands which they invest in family time, often in the mountains.

This photo better displays the size of the lake.  The white dots in this picture are sailboats

Fortunately for us, no Sunday shopping has driven us from the city often resulting in another expat adventure in Switzerland.