Lungern Hike, May 29th trip

"Lets go on a family hike" he said. "I found an easy route along a lake" he said. "It's flat". Famous last words.  Mike had Thursday off so we loaded up the car and drove an hour and a half southeast to Lungern. It's a small town with a population similar to Lauterbrunnen (a little over 2,000).

Here we are headed for a nice family hike:

We parked at the train station and picked a route. These signs list the estimated time it takes to get to the targeted destination. We choose a route that would be 2 hours and 10 minutes, so about 4.4 hours total.

The first part of the hike was on a small road. There was no shoulder so we had to watch out for the very few cars that zoomed by. The road kept going up. It was curvy so right when you think the hill is over you turn the corner and it keeps going up. We knew it would eventually turn into a trail and we figured it would flatten out then.

The water in Lake Lungern was a turquoise color, and very beautiful.

The trail was a jeep trail. It never flattened out. Literally for 2.5 miles we went straight up. Tucker was a trooper during the climb, I took him off his leash and he kept up but didn't look too happy. We didn't see any signs for a while but there was no other trail to follow so we were going the right way. Then it finally started to level off!

We went through an open gate, there was no sign on the gate or any indication that we couldn't go that way. We finally saw a house in the distance. Then we heard and saw two big dogs running towards us. They ran right up to Tucker and it freaked me out. Tucker didn't seem fazed and the dogs were not growling just sniffing. A lady came down and said something in German. Of course we had no idea what she said and I assumed we went the wrong way and were trespassing. We turned around and left. As we went back down we looked for any missed trails and there weren't any.

Going back was much easier, it was all downhill. Tucker loved running down the hills. It took us 2 hours to get up the hill and a little over 30 minutes to get back down.















We looked at a map when we got back down and it looked like her house was on the trail...she was probably inviting us in for tea or something. We didn't see any other hikers so I have no idea if that is still an active trail or not. But we almost made it to our destination and we ended up climbing 1,995 feet.  That's about the climb at some of the mountain races I want to do so it's nice to see what it's like. Granted in the race that elevation is spread out over 13 or more miles.

I wouldn't mind going back in a few months and climbing it again. I'd like to be about to make it up in 1.5 instead of 2.

On the way home Mike wanted to go the "scenic route". This route took us up and over a mountain.
As we were going down the road, the road got skinner. The entire road was as wide as a car and a half. So two cars could not pass each other at the same time. One car would have to pull over and let the other car pass. Oh.My.Lanta. I was freaking out. The road was narrow, and full of sharp curves, cars were zipping around the curves, there was a huge drop off immediately to my right. If a car hit us, we would defiantly be going over the ledge.

 I didn't take any pictures as I had a death grip on the door with one hand and the seat with the other.  It probably took an hour to get up and over the mountain. An HOUR of me freaking out. I don't know how there aren't wrecks everyday, but it seemed to work. Drivers are very alert here. The scenic route ended up taking 3 hours to get home...I didn't like the scenic route and I don't plan to go that way again.

Once we got home we took a nap and woke up to a double rainbow. It's hard to see in these pictures but it's there and it was a full rainbow. Beautiful.