On our Local Mountain, Mount Zug

November 23, 2016 -- In the Alps there is a weather phenomenon called a Fön Wind, which blows warm air from the South over the Alps, which is the case right now, and all the lovely snow the mountains got at the beginning of November is pretty well gone or just not so nice any more.

This Fön Wind can blow up to 120 km per hour and we were not at all expecting it up on our local small mountain, Mount Zug, as we took the Funicular up the hill with the plan of hiking across the range for four hours to Arth-Goldau on the South end of Lake Zug. (This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time now, having lived here over three years and usually traveling much further away for our hikes.)

We stuck it out for an hour, but the strong South wind (maybe about 70 km/hour) hitting us from the front made walking tedious, so we changed plans and headed Northeast to Lake Aegeri on the East side of Mount Zug. At least the wind was behind us. And even though I will have to reschedule my goal to hike across Mount Zug, we got in another good 10km of afternoon exercise!

Heading up Mount Zug with the Funicular

View of the North end of Lake Zug from Mount Zug

Walking against the South wind was tedious, and I wasn't ready to do another 3 hours of this.

After walking for a little over an hour, we escaped into the little Buschenchappeli (Chapel) to have a bite to eat (no photo, all I had on my mind was escaping the wind) then headed NE down the other side of the mountain with the wind at our backs.

Landscape on Mount Zug, our local hills, looking North.

Approaching Lake Aegeri

This little chapel in the middle of a farmstead is called the Antonius Chapel, built in 1671. This is along the pilgrim trail from Walchwil to Einsiedeln.