Hike to the Summit of Mt. Stanserhorn (Starting at Diegisbalm/Oberalp Farm)

Wednesday November 18, 2020 -- More nice weather, another chance to get into the mountains! We decided to walk up Mt. Stanserhorn near Lake Lucerne (Canton Nidwalden) on its "shorter side", namely from the populated upper plateau around Wirzweli, which saves us about 800m ascent as Wirzweli can be reached by cable car from Dallenwil in the Engelberg Valley. (NOTE: Real hikers ascend this mountain from the North side, a 1400-m ascent which is too much for me!). 

Now, the problem was that the cable car to Wirzweli is currently in overhaul, pretty common for cable cars in the month of November. But, a lesser-known combination of two private cable-cars serving two farms nearby would take us to 900m above the valley bottom, and these are part of the inventory of farmers' cable cars which we still had yet to try out, so we got up in a round-about way. Furthermore, these cable cars run all year round and you operate them yourself and pay into a cash box at the top: So much more fun that way!

The drawback was, that we had to walk 30 minutes from Wolfenschiessen in the shade of valley bottom as there is no closer public transport. Advantage: No other people far and wide doing this! (Full packed train of people all headed onwards to Engelberg!!). And we soon reached the sunshine on the upper hillside, where we encountered almost nobody for the first two hours of the 3 hours and 30 minutes it took until we reached the restaurant at the top of Mt. Stanserhorn! The final stretch, the 350m steep uphill climb on a wet clay trail (with surprisingly many people descending....) was a tough one. Our plan was to order our signature Panaché at the restaurant and enjoy the sun and the view.... until we saw the masses of people on the terrace and all those already waiting to descend with the CabriO Cable Car! Oh horror, we weren't staying here. We lucked out that we could move ahead for a spot on the descent because we promised to walk the final 40 minutes to Stans from the mid-station, as there is not enough room on the funicular for all the people descending on the world's only double-decker open-topped cable car....

Heading by train along the Engelberg Valley Bottom toward Wolfenschiessen, from where we have to walk 30 minutes to the cable car. Still very shady here, although there is sunshine where we are going along this hillside

After crossing the Engelberg Aa River, some welcome sunshine before it gets cold again! We are headed down this road.

Still, some nice farm houses to look at.

At this time of year, it's cold in the shade. We walked quickly!

This little "shed" is the resting spot of the Diegisbalm cable car. Mostly it services the farm up on the hillside to the right. Paragliders are the main customers here!

Reading the instructions: We can get in the cabin, press the "go up" button, and pay at the top. There are actually two cableways; another one starts at the farm where this one ends.

Down below is the little shed. Far and wide only farms. No bus nearby, so it's a 30-minute walk to the nearest train station. The river is called the "Engelberg Aa"

Heading up to the Diegisbalm Farm, with a look up the Engelberg Valley. Maybe about 30 minutes later there might be sunshine below.

At the top of the first cable car. Someone came up behind us, and I barely had time to pose for my photo before our cabin started back down!

On the other side of the Diegisbalm farm is the second cable car, takes us to the next farm higher up called "Oberalp". Altogether 900m above the valley bottom

We think the farmers who live here came up directly behind us. The signal for the cabin descent went off before we had even fully exited the cable car!

Oberalp cable car heading back down to Diegisbalm farm

At the top there is the price list, and you drop your money into the cash box. Then you step out of the "shed" right into the "vehicle garage"!

A nice look across into the side valley where it goes to Oberrickenbach. There are several cable cars in there, some small private ones as well. Lots of sunshine here!

After riding the two cable cars to Oberalp, we still had a steep 30-minute climb, and then a comfortable walk to the crest at Aecherli, then an easy uphill before the final, one-hour climb to the restaurant on Mt. Stanserhorn. (The Wirzweli cable car was closed for revision, otherwise we would have come up with that one, plus Gummenalp. That would have been the least amount of ascent.)

Heading steep uphill above the Oberalp Farm. The second private cable car belongs to these people, who farm up here, and possibly live here year-round.

A look to the South along the mountain flank. There is a trail along the ridge, called the Obwaldner/Nidwaldner Höhenweg. (We walked a section a few weeks ago, just to the South of here)

First steep section is over, and now it's pretty easy-going for a while, with good views!

Arriving at the road on the high alp called "Egg". We're going to head down that road to the right. It was warm enough on this side for bare legs!

And now, ahead of us to the North, we can see the summit of Mt.Stanserhorn, and can see approximately where we are going to walk.

A view down to the Vierwaldstättersee (Lake Lucerne) and behind it: Mt. Rigi. On the right is Mt. Buochserhorn, and we have been to that summit once before.

There is a cheese dairy along the trail, so we bought some cheese again (self-serve on honor principle)

Part of the hard work for the mountain farmers here is removing large boulders from the pastures, to make it easier to harvest the hay. They had to bring in a tractors and ropes to secure the boulder so it wouldn't roll on the dairy below!

Up ahead on the steep flank is a chapel overlooking the valley to the West. We've planned a short detour to see the view from there.

Route 88 is the "Nidwaldner Höhenweg", and Route 57 is the "Obwaldner Höhenweg" (The trail is along the border of the two Cantons). And the sign tells us we still have 1 hour 40 minutes to get to the Stanserhorn cableway!

Walking along the crest between the two valleys, this is a look westward to the Sarner Aa Valley and the flanks of Mt. Pilatus

Detour to the chapel

A view up the Sarner Aa Valley and Lake Sarnersee, from the chapel, perched on a steep mountainside.

Zoomed view into the Bernese Alps, although I don't know what this peak is. 

A wonderful view past the village of Wirzweli to Mt. Titlis above Engelberg.

What a surprise to discover a meadow flower still in bloom

Behind that little house starts the final steep ascent to the top of Mt. Stanserhorn.

The first half hour of the ascent was in the shadow of the mountain, and the trail was wet clay, rather slippery. (We were surprised at the number of people that were actually making their way DOWN this trail). Later, at the saddle, we had lots of sunshine again.

Making our way up the slippery trail

Once we reached the saddle and the sunshine, we had another superb view up the Sarner Aa Valley.

The last stretch was lovely, on dry trails and in the sunshine. (Town of Wirzweli in the center of the photo)

From here we can see the place where we came over from the cable cars, and the open clearing below where we passed before ascending.

A set of stairs takes you to the loop trail around the summit of Mt. Stanserhorn, a nice walk for people who come up from the North side with the popular Cabrio Cable Car, and who just want to enjoy the sunshine and the views, and an easy stroll.

We had planned a relaxing drink on the view terrace, but were overwhelmed by the crowd up here, so we walked around the restaurant to see the view, and then headed down with the Cabrio.

Can't blame the crowds for wanting to come up here to enjoy the sunshine and view on a beautiful mid-November Wednesday

On the North side of the restaurant is this spectacular view over the entire Luzern area, with the town of Stans below in the shadow of the mountain. The world-famous Cabrio Cable Car is making its way up with another load of people.

Cabrio: The world's first and only open-air double-decker cable car. The cabin carries 48 people, but the connecting funicular (section at the bottom which takes you into Stans) can only carry 36. So we were allowed to pass the queued throngs and take the next car down, because we promised to walk instead of riding the funicular (another 40 minutes of walking).

At the base station of the Cabrio Cable-way, 36 people got on the funicular, and the rest of us walked the 2.5-km down into the town of Stans.

The nostalgic funicular commutes between Stans and the Cable-Car station. They were running every 15 minutes with these crowds. Our trail down was mostly along this railway line. 

Our final section was mostly in the shadow of Mt. Stanserhorn, but with a nice view of Lake Luzern and the town of Stansstad... lots of sunshine there still!

Including the two sections we had to walk at the start and the end (before and after the cable cars), it was a total of 4.5 hours of walking.

Our tour as viewed on Google Earth Satellite Map

We  love this area for hiking. There are lots of small private cable cars that take you up high in the mountains. It's also relatively close to where we live.

Panorama Ridge Hike from Mostelberg to Rothenthurm

Saturday November 14, 2020 -- Still more beautiful late fall weather with clear skies and good views, but most cable cars are now going through overhaul before the skiing season! But we found one that was still running on weekends! Well, we actually mapped out the hike we wanted to do before checking... then we lucked out.

Mostelberg is a small vacation village just one hour from where we live, a popular family ski area when we have enough snow, and very popular for hiking along the Schwyzer Höhenweg (Schwyz High Trail near the Mythen mountains). We have also already done several hikes in this area (there is also a lovely winter trail with loads of sunshine and views), but this time we mapped out a lesser-used trail along the crest of the low rolling hills.... turns out there were still more people than we expected! The hike itself was not difficult: Besides a lot of mud (seems to be the way it is this time of year), there were no long uphill stretches, mostly up and down over several lower peaks, but distance-wise it was longer than expected -- 15 km and five hours of walking! My feet were very sore after this one. But again good views across to the Uri and Bernese Alps and especially in this "flat-land" area near Zurich.

There is a 374-meter long suspension bridge near the cable car station at Mostelberg (completed in 2010), which used to be the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in Europe until 2017, surpassed at the completion of the 494-meter long Charles Kuonen suspension bridge near Zermatt, which was the longest in the world until apparently this year when a 516-meter one was opened in Portugal. I crossed the Mostelberg one once in 2014, and wanted to cross it again. This meant hiking the first uphill section in the shadow of the mountain, which is usually acceptable. Afterwards we had lots of sunshine, and the only "hillside" shadow we had was on our final descent from Nüsellstock to Rothenthurm, about 30 minutes....

We were lucky that the Sattel-Hochstuckli gondola aerial cable-way is still in operation on weekends in November! (Overhaul taking place from Mon.-Fri.). The cable-way saves us 400m ascent.

Our ultimate goal is the Nüsellstock peak above Rothenthurm via an undulating ridge, but after that it's still 90 minutes to descend, so a good five hours of walking!

Opened in 2010, the "Skywalk" was the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in Europe until the Charles Kuonen Bridge was opened in 2017. After crossing the bridge, we had to climb through the shady forest to the sunshine above.

(On a side note: This is what the bridge looks like from the South):

Many people were going to the summit of Hochstuckli, but we walked below that summit to reach the "crest" of undulating hills till Nüsellstock, from were we descended to Rothenthurm.

About 200m above the bridge we get the first views over the region of Canton Schwyz.

A close-up of the Uri and Bernese Alps to the southwest.

And a super-zoomed view of Mts. Eiger and Mönch, the most well-known of the Bernese Alps.

Directly to the North we can see the town of Rothenthurm (our final destination). This large expanse is the largest upper moorland in Switzerland, and a popular region for cross-country skiing when there is snow in winter!

To the Northeast: Lake Aegeri (Aegerisee). The steam "cloud" in the far back might be the nuclear power plant at Niedergösgen near Aarau.

Another beautiful view over the Uri Alps and Mt. Fronalpstock on the left.

Most people we met on this stretch were headed to Mt. Hochstuckli, the rise on the right. From here we also get the first glimpse of the distinctive Mythen peaks.

Nice trail, lots of sunshine. We are headed South directly toward the Mythen Peaks!

The trail to the East of Mt. Hochstuckli was very wet and muddy. We think this is generally a wet area, as parts of the trail are covered with wooden planks.

And then we arrived at the passage with this great view of the North side of the Mythen Peaks. From here we could descend to join the Schwyzer Höhenweg which passes to the left of these peaks (we've walked that already), but we are heading uphill to the left.

And also a fantastic view down toward the towns of Schwyz and Brunnen, and Lake Lucerne and Seelisberg; Mt. Fronalpstock on the left, and the extension of Mr. Rigi on the right.

Here's where we had our picnic lunch, with this view of the Mythen Peaks to the South.

And from here we continued northwards again, up and down over several of these small peaks.

A look behind us to the sweep of the Alps to the Southwest.

Many people enjoying the view on one of these small peaks

From here we can see North to the city of Einsiedeln on Lake Sihlsee.

A barn with a bench in the sunshine for a much-needed break for my feet! By this point we had already been walking about three hours!

The sign at the barn informs us that we still have two hours to go to our destination! It's like an entire second hike ahead of us!

A really good view to the West of Mt. Rossberg above Sattel and Goldau, which is part of the Mount Zug Range (our home mountain). And on the left: Mts. Rigi and Pilatus, which you can see from most everywhere in Northern and Eastern Switzerland!

Another peak, this one is called Höch Tändli 

Descending Höch Tändli across this sunny meadow, we can see Lake Zurich (to the North) in the background.

Zoomed view of the summit of Nüsellstock, our final peak before the descent to Rothenthurm. Those people lounging on "our" bench were still there when we got to the summit!

We got to the summit of Mt. Nüsellstock at 14:00 and still have over 90 minutes to go!

A nice clear view to the Toggenburg Region in the North, the city of Einsiedeln, and Lake Sihlsee. Unfortunately some very dark shadow below that we need to cross!

And looking down below us, we see the town of Rothenthurm, which we are now descending to. And in the back, Lake Aegerisee

Thirty minutes in the shade, and then we reached a nice sun-dappled forest trail.

A look up to the summit of Mt. Nüsellstock. We descended on the shaded side.

Below us the valley bottom. The mountain on the left is Hochstuckli. About halfway up is the town of Mostelberg, where we started our hike. 

And the final stretch down to the town of Rothenthurm. It's now 15:30 and shadows are moving quickly over the town, so it's a good time to end our hike!

Our 5-hour hike mapped on Google Earth. We started in Mostelberg at 09:40, and caught the train in Rothenthurm at 15:45.  That's 6 hours for a 5-hour hike, which means only one hour of breaks along the way. That's quite an achievement!

Because this area is near where we live, we have done a lot of hiking in this region!! This was the first time we attempted the hills between Mythen and Einsiedeln because we have to walk a minimum of five hours, which is a long hike....