Hiking the Swiss Alps - Suprising Amount of Cow Bell

 In July, I hiked Mount Pilatus, located in the Swiss Alps, near Lucerne.  Mount Pilatus overlooks Central Switzerland.  As always, Wikipedia can tell you all you need to know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_(mountain)  Wikipedia can also tell you things that you do not need to know - ex. a medieval legend maintained that dragons with healing power live on the mountain (I did not see any dragons).

Admittedly, I am using the term hike loosely because I only hiked down, I did not hike up.  Coming down was much faster and easier than I am sure it is to go up, but due to time constraints, I will never know. I do know that my quads burned after coming down.

If you are only hiking down, or not hiking at all, which is a surprisingly popular choice (or maybe unsurprisingly), the recommended journey to get to the top of Mt. Pilatus and back down is three-pronged. Your journey begins with a boat trip across Lake Lucerne. From the lake, you can see the beautiful view of the snow-capped Alps.  Some of the peaks are 14,000 feet.   This boat journey will take you to the base of Mt. Pilatus where a cogwheel train awaits passengers to go up in small groups.  The cogwheel train is the steepest in the world.  My understanding is that we were at a 45 degree angle heading up the mountain.  I am not scared of heights, but this ride made me nervous.  I have a sneaking suspicion it was steeper than 45 degrees in certain sections. Also, at this time I must note that goats are amazing creatures.  Goats were popping out of cracks and crevasses next to the train tracks.  I don't know how they didn't fall off the mountain.  Maybe they do, but the ones I saw were quite agile. When you reach the end of the cogwheel train, you are at the highest peak of Pilatus, which is just shy of 7,000 feet.  If you look at the below picture, you can see a tiny speck in the clouds.  That tiny speck is the gondola you can take back down the mountain in segments if you opt not to hike down.

The entire train ride up, you hear cowbells and at certain times, see cows! This totally threw me.  Apparently, the cowbells allow the cow owners to find their cows.  I guess this makes sense, but I was shocked that I could hear them even at the top of the mountain.  So. Much. Cowbell.  An alternative to finding your cows would be not to allow them to roam the alps.  But kudos to the bold cows who are willing to hike the alps with no fear.  I question the judgement of the owners, but I was born in Delaware, so maybe I am likely skewed in my perception that cows should be on flat, fenced-in land.

The views from the top were breathtaking.  There is a route around the top of the mountain that you can hike.  It has a small wire for a railing, and honestly, it was a little dizzying, so after about three-quarters of a mile, I turned around and returned to the lookout at the top of the mountain.  These pictures from the top really capture the view.  You can also note that people are hang gliding.  They are doing so by literally running and jumping off the side of the mountain right next to you.  It is a little nerve wracking to watch because you wonder what happens if they don't catch air.  Luckily, we didn't have to witness that type of problem.

We took the gondola part of the way back down (there are three places you can get off the gondola) and then got off and began hiking down the mountain, which took about 3 hours.  Despite being at slightly lower altitudes, it was still quite steep. 

Hiking down the mountain, there was not much taking out the camera because we wanted to watch our footing.  When we got closer to the bottom the hike began to weave us through the farms of a small town that is outside Lucerne.  Once we reached the center of the town, we needed to catch the bus back to Lucerne.  We confidently got on the incorrect bus and rode that for a while before we realized we were not going in the right direction.

I love a good hike, and it was a great way to burn off the cheese and chocolate that comes courtesy of all those loud cows.  There is nothing I can say that will do the views justice, and no great tips or epiphanies I can offer about hiking, so I am just including a bunch of pictures of the view.  Though the pictures also can't do it justice, they certainly do a better job than my words.

The views looking down on the lake from Pilatus.

More views from the top of Pilatus.

Flowers on the mountain.

Cute little farm town we hiked through towards the bottom of the mountain.

The Masters - 8 Miles of Following Golfers

For a few years I have been trying to get tickets to the Masters Tournament through the Masters online lottery system.  These attempts were not due to a profound love of golf, but rather my husband loves golf, and I enjoy pretty much all live sporting events. The online lottery system is great because it is controlled by the Masters Tournament, which means if you "win" the opportunity to purchase the tickets, you can purchase the tickets at face value, rather than the astronomical prices you find on Stubhub, or other resale vendors.  Finally, in 2017, I won the opportunity to purchase tickets...two to be exact...for the first day of the practice rounds in 2018.  I immediately scooped them up.

Now, with everything that happened in 2017, looking for a hotel room for the 2018 Masters ended up on the back burner until very close to the event.  Finally, I got on hotels.com, and the closest remotely affordable hotel room that I could find was in Aiken, South Carolina.  The city appeared  close - 30 to 40 minutes from Augusta (where the Masters takes place). My friend Jill and my mother both told me that Aiken was very cute and charming.  I booked a room at one of the few places left there. 

Now, I am going to assume there is a cute and charming part of Aiken, but that is not the part where we stayed.  We arrived at our hotel, which was actually a motel, around 1am.  We see that there is a tequila bar in a strip mall next to the motel that appears to be closing for the night, or kicking people out. It really wasn't clear.  We check in and pull our car around to the back of the motel so that we aren't parked on the tequila bar side (though that is where our room was located).  In the back parking lot is a couple having sex on top of their car.  I suppose they didn't have time to get into their motel room?  Love, so charming.  We get into our room and realize that there is no insulation on the motel room door, so we can hear everything happening outside.  Everything.  I have stayed in some pretty questionable places over the years while traveling, but this is the first time I have "slept" with the television blaring and the chair in front of the door.  My husband is by no means a small guy, and he fully supported this decision. 

We woke up bright and early to continue our journey to the golf tournament. When we got  to my car in the morning, we looked at the car next to us.  It was a silver Impala with tinted windows and a ton of bullet holes in the side.  Now, I am the first to admit that I do not fix dings and scratches on my car right away, if ever.  I figure that given where I live, my car is going to be crammed into parking decks next to Suburbans that have decidedly deemed themselves "compact," and my car will get hit by other car doors on a regular basis.  That is DC driving. But if I were to get a real hefty dent, or someone were to hit me, I would do my best to remedy the situation.  I couldn't help but wonder how many bullet holes you have to have in your car to make the call to at least cover them up, if not repair the holes.  Based on my limited knowledge from inspecting the Impala, the total at the very least must surpass a dozen.

We left cute and charming Aiken and headed to Augusta.  The weather was gorgeous, and as expected, the course is beautifully manicured with azaleas everywhere.  You may be wondering how this all leads to exercise.  In total that day I walked 7.75 miles following around amazing golfers. 

One of the best things about the tournament is that you can't bring cell phones in; however, you can bring a camera to the practice rounds. I cannot think of another place where no one has electronic access for 8 or 9 hours straight.  Even if you opt out of bringing your phone somewhere, usually someone else has a cell phone.  The 1980s imposed lifestyle forced people to talk to each other, which was wonderful. 


Example of a real conversation that happened while watching Fred Couples (below walking with Tiger Woods).

Random person, "How old is Fred Couples?"  Stranger next to you, "I think 50s or 60s."  Teenagers also listening nearby, "I think like, 80." (F- you, teenagers).  Needless to say, without Google, humans interacted again, which was great.  There were also phone booths, which I haven't seen in a good decade.  One guy was getting tormented for calling his wife from the phone booth.  One of his logical friends, who was genuinely looking out for him said, do you think your wife wants to hear from you enjoying 80 degrees in the middle of a workday when she is working surrounded by snow and slush (I'm guessing they were from Boston)?  That friend had a very good point. 


I think the practice rounds are the way to go.  It is easy for me to say that because I have never been able to get tickets to the tournament rounds, but hear me out.  You can cover a lot more ground (close to 8 miles), and you get to see a lot more golfers up close.  We were up close to some of the best golfers in the world, and it was day one of practice, so the golfers were still perky and congenial to everyone. 

I recommend trying the lottery system and wearing comfortable walking shoes.  I have a new appreciation for golf, and the walk was a great workout.  Even going slowly, walking that far certainly burns off gross pimento cheese sandwiches.