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The deal today is we're going to the mountains again but this time we'll go up into them. The plan is for the girls to do some conference stuff in the morning and we three are to meet on a train from Zurich to Luzern and from there take a train to Engleberg and a ski lift up to the mountaintop and the Titlis Glacier.
The girls are to get on the train at Thalwil which is near the KBS conference center. The train line from Zurich to Luzern has stops in Rüschlikon and Thalwil and hugs the Zurichsee before crossing a mountain pass to Zug and on the Luzern. Where we are staying, the Jolie Ville motel in the village of Adliswil, is near the number 7 trolley/tram line which runs parallel to the train tracks and lake shore but it's up the hill a bit. Reg is to take the city tram into Zurich and catch the inter-city train from there to meet up with the girls.
Reg is supposed to do some shopping in Zurich for lunch, snacks, pack some drinks, etc. to have on the train. He must catch the 12:07 train at Zürich, Bahnhofplatz to meet the girls at 12:18 in Thalwil. At 10:50 he awakens, he's overslept! He dashes out the door and the 11:02 bus is there already! Were he to miss it the next would be too late, but he makes it downtown by 11:30.
In Switzerland the trains, public transit, trams and buses really do run on time. You can pretty much set your watch by them to within the minute — "Oh, my watch is 10 seconds fast!" Kate and Cindy almost missed their shuttle bus to the conference one morning. We're told, "It's Switzerland. Everything runs on time!" And if you're not there, they don't wait for you. It's so unlike Canada and the meetings we have there where no one arrives on time!
Back to Reg at the Zurich train station. As it's Sunday morning, nothing is open. The big co-op he had planned to go to for snacks and such is closed so he ends up buying some orange juice and pop from the automated vending machines in the mall under the train station. The vending machines are gigantic (two huge glass doors about 6'x12') with everything from sandwiches, juice, candy bars, bread, butter, eggs and even tampons! It's a real soup to nuts vending machine.
Reg buys a coffee and finds the right train for Luzern. He settles in with a splash of Grand Marnier to sweeten his coffee as it's been a hectic hour for him with no time to even shower and shave. He's feeling quite hung over as they had stayed up pretty late the night before — they called Jack and Doreta. When Jack answered the phone Reg did a funny German accent asking for the father of Kathryn Graham. Jack thought it was pretty darn silly so put our niece Eva on the phone. Kate talked with her folks and wished Jack a happy D-day — the 50th anniversary would be tomorrow, Monday June 6.
The girls are on time at Thalwil and we settle in for the hour long ride to Luzern.
There are a number of really good mountain views near Zurich. Jungfrau, near Interlaken, where we were on Friday, is the highest peak but the furthest away. To get to Jungfrau you really need the time for an all-day adventure and it's not all covered by our rail pass. On Wednesday the KBS are going to Mount Pilatus which is very near Luzern. We saw a tour advertisement to Mount Titlis which we find is nearby at Engleberg on a reasonable train route. It's an hour on a fast train from Zurich to Luzern and then a one hour train ride from Luzern up to Engleberg. It's an old cog train up to Engleberg so it promises to be quite steep. From Engleberg it will be a ski lift(s) up to the mountain top.
The train ride to Engleberg includes a section with an incredible incline (like the track from Brienz to Luzern we took on Friday). It's so steep that our glasses slide off the table and doors swing open in the carriage. This is a cog train that engages a geared central gear track. It's slow going on the cogged section but necessary as the train would otherwise slide back on the rails. But it's just an ordinary commuter train too, this isn't a novelty for the tourists. We guess these probably are as common as dirt in this country but we're still very impressed.
Along the way we see many lifts up the mountainside. Some are for ski slopes but we guess that others are for lifting gear up to the farmland and summer meadows. We can see snow cover and clouds on the mountain peaks. The day is coolish and the weather is not too clear. Nevertheless it's our day to go into the mountains.
The ascent on ski lifts from Engleberg to Titlis Glacier is something like this in four stages: Engleberg is at 1,000m and from there you take a lift up to the first stop at Gerschnialp where there are green meadows with cows and lots of cow bells clanking away. The next lift is to the second stop Trübsee where there is a hotel. Then there is a lift with big cars up to the third stop at Stand. From there it's one final stage to the 3,000m level in a big rotating car to the fourth stop at the Titlis Glacier.
It costs 66 franc return (what would one do with a one-way ticket?) but we get a 20% discount with the Europe Rail Pass. It takes about an hour to go up and it's quite an adventure. The first leg (actually two legs but you can stay on the same car) is the scariest as you're in little gondolas that hold six very thin people. The three of us is plenty, how would ever they fit six skiers with their skis and gear? When these gondolas catch the cable to start moving they swing around quite a bit. Kate was scared and insisted we all sit very still. No dashing about for photos!
Signage in these gondolas lead us to believe they do bungy-jumping from them! Not for Kate, not for any of us.
From level two at Trübsee on up it was all white with snow. From there down it was still very green with towering tall conifers (we swear they are at least 50' tall) and open meadows in the flat land between the peaks. There are all sorts of "Brown Swiss" contented milk cows. They only seem to have one kind of cow and they are grazing in these mountain meadows. The din from their clanking bells is quite amazing.
We see a farmer who is cutting some hay in one of the cleared meadows on the hillside. Although it's been cut by tractor he rakes the hay by hand. This is farming at a very small scale. They also use these tiny wee two wheeled tractors you walk behind that look an awful lot like our garden tractors. They're used in these meadows where it's far too steep for the big vehicles we're used to. Farming must be a very labor intensive enterprise.
At about Trübsee (the second stop on the lift up) the trees really thin out. There's a village there and a lake (the lake is called Trübsee). We believe the cable car is only way up to this village. On a good day you'd have a great view and could walk around the lake. It would be oh so scenic. Today the ground is covered with snow and it's quite chilly — about 0° Celsius. At the top it's -10° Celsius and very blustery. Because it was so cold and wet Cindy bought a cheap plastic raincoat that would have cost $1.98 in Canada but sold for $14 here.
You can hike between Trübsee and Stand (the next stop up) in July and August. Not today though. And you would need to be in really great shape to do it on the best of days. We bet it would take all day even to walk down. The trail is narrow switch backs on a treeless steep mountain incline.
At Stand the Japanese tourists, and there seems to be a lot of them, are out playing in the snow. We have seen this stuff before at home, and not too long ago at that, so aren't as excited as they are. At Titlis Glacier, the final stop at 3,000m, the peak is covered with snow and ice in a glacial sheet that extends down to Stand where you see it break away into the valley below. The lake at Trübsee must be very cold and will be fed by this melting ice sheet.
From the valley floor, before we went up, we could see the hotel at Trübsee and that seemed to be at or near the peak. As you ascend on the cable cars you find that's not quite true, it's barely half way up. At Stand the weather is getting wilder and we cannot see much looking up to the mountain top or looking back down to the valley below. The last leg is completely in the clouds with no view at all. So we're in the Alps but cannot say we saw them! Given that the clouds are obscuring everything the view is not too scary or inspiring — we really can see nothing.
Cindy writes that at 3,000m (that's around 10,000') you feel somewhat breathless and a bit nauseated.
The food at the Titlis Panoramic restaurant on top is as expensive as everywhere else — 0.80 franc for a little pack of ketchup! We have a late lunch here and take a tour of an ice cave. They've carved it out of the glacier. We're sure it would have been a great view from the Panoramic Restaurant if we could only have seen it.
And it turns out we're actually at "Lesser Titlis" — we've not made it to the very top. There's ski lifts on the glacier for skiers to get to the real top of the mountain but not for us. As the glacier moves they need to shift the lifts periodically.
Given the low clouds today we didn't get to see much of the Alps from "Lesser Titlis" and the "Titlis Glacier" but, at least we can say, we've truly been in the Alps.
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