Finsterwald to Schwarzenberg in the Entlebuch

In April, our weather was so great we did several hikes over two weeks:

April 21, 2018 -- With lots of snow down to 1000m and refusing to melt, we plotted a lower-elevation trail through the moor landscape in the Unesco World Heritage area of Entlebuch, always an interesting landscape. The cows were just starting to come out of the barns, so happy to be outside that they could barely be contained by the farmer's kids. And through all the wooded portions we crossed, still masses of fallen and snapped trees from the powerful wind storms we had in January. It will take a long time to clear out everything. 

This hike was a hefty 13 km that took us 4 hours 30 minutes. For the last part we chose to walk along a river in a ravine instead of heading up from the river on the other side. I wonder if it was the right decision? We saved ourselves a second steep uphill, but the wide road along the river proved rather monotonous, which is almost worse...

The cows are eager and happy to be let out of the barns!

The first part of the trail was a short hike through a forest, which took twice as long to cross as it should have!

Like an obstacle course trying to find the trail through all these fallen trees

This area is called Fuchseremoos and is a large area of soft ground and peat bogs, very pleasant to walk across

Everywhere large trees were simply snapped by the strong winds

Great weather for our walk in the Entlebuch

The highest part of our trip: Alpliegg at 1280m. Here were were sure not to encounter snow

We're always pleased to find these pleasant picnic spots

Heading back down the hill to the farms below, then into the ravine and back up the other side to Schwarzenberg

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Heading into the ravine: We're lucky that tree didn't fall exactly onto the trail or we might have had a hard time going on!

Making our way to the river at the bottom of the ravine

From here we had to decide to head back out of the ravine (steep up the hill on the other side) or follow the river 

We followed the river but the trail was a wide forest road and rather monotonous

At the end of our tour in Schwarzenberg. The striped hill in the back are called Mittaggüpfi, an extension of Mount Pilatus near Lucerne.

This was a long tour. Over four hours and almost 13 km.