Evening Walk around the Moated Castle Mauensee in Canton Luzern

(Note: This Album was posted on May 1, 2020 during a time when we are doing less hiking, so I can catch up on sorting some photos that I had not previously had time to do. This particular hike was a small after-work hike we did in mid-April two years ago, just before our trip to Canada that year).

April 18, 2018 -- On this wonderful day and it being a Wednesday, which is usually a day off for both of us, Urs was required to work... but not wanting to waste this beautiful Spring day, we made the following arrangement: I would meet him somewhere close to his work, so that we could still enjoy a walk together in the beautiful Spring evening. We decided to meet in Sursee, a town that is only an hour's trip for me, and 20 minutes from where he works. Nearby is a small lake called Mauensee, wherein sits a castle on an island in the middle of the lake. I saw this once passing by in a car many years ago, and always wanted to see it up close.

As it turned out, you could not see it that well up close. The lake is ringed in thick bushes, being a nature reserve for some rare and protected species, and so the trail around the lake does not offer many views of the castle (which together with the lake, are in private ownership). The best view of the castle on its little island in the lake was definitely from the road higher up and to the West.

Nevertheless, we had a few windows through the bushes as we rounded the lake and saw the building from various angles, but as the tour around the small lake was just under an hour (not counting the walk through the woods to get there), we decided on an alternate route through a small farming hamlet. Altogether our little 7-km walk took us about two hours, and was a great option for having also had to work that day. Furthermore, the air was crisply clear and we had the most spectacular views of the mountains on our trip back home at 6 p.m.

Starting at the train station in Sursee, we walked northward, then through the forest to the lake from where we got the first glimpse of the castle on its island. After almost completing the walk around the perimeter, we walked through some farms before heading back to the train station

Zoomed view of the castle on its island across the lake

Another view from the side: Mostly we were looking through bushes and rushes

  

At the front entrance to the island is a gated bridge, and somewhere a sign that says "Private Property, no Access!"

I walked toward the road a bit to see if I could get the "road view", but you really had to go higher up.

    

At just one or two places we actually were able to get down to the waterfront

A sign reminds hikers that the lake also is private property, and there is no swimming allowed, also not for dogs!

Last and maybe best look at the island as we got back to near where we started

Marshes and ponds before heading into the farmlands

  

Pond dweller

It is always a treat to walk through the farmyards

So many farms have in-house shops where you can buy milk, eggs, cheese, syrups, and homemade crafts and teas etc.

See that fellow? He had to make sure we weren't making any trouble!

  

I'm not a fan of dogs, but the Bernese Mountain Dogs are exceptions

Oh and every walk has to include some of these Spring Babies!

And once in a while an animal that is NOT a cow

Back at the train station there were two of these marvellous magnolia trees in full bloom

Lovely 7-km late afternoon walk. We started at about 4:30 p.m., and it took us about 2 hours.

On the train back to Luzern, the snow-capped mountains loomed up so clear

And the last stretch from Luzern to Zug along Lake Rotsee, with Mount Pilatus in the background. 

From the Raten Pass to Unteraegeri via Mount Gottschalkenberg

(Note: This publication was made on April 12, 2020, almost two years after the actual hike. In 2020 the Spring seems to be much more advanced, as the snow on the Raten Pass is now long gone, and most of the early fruit trees are now already in bloom.)

April 14, 2018 -- There was nothing particularly spectacular about this Saturday afternoon hike we did.... we picked it because it was close to home, and we knew there would be some views. Most of the hike was through forests, though, and although the week before we had done a different forest hike with lots of sunshine showing through the leafless forest, this particular forest was a dense fir forest and therefore rather shady and cold.

And for this time of year, there was still quite an amount of snow up here near the Raten Pass, a low pass road (1077 m) between Lake Aegerisee and the Rothenthurm High Moor in Kanton Schwyz. But the weather was fairly mild and it is always a thrill to do a "mountain" hike in early Spring. Except for the ascent to the restaurant on Mount Gottschalkenberg, the rest of our hike was along the "Aegeri Valley Panorama Trail", with some very nice views down both sides of the ridge, i.e. Lake Zurich to the North and Lake Aegeri plus the Uri Alps to the South. Furthermore, this trail is a piece of National Trail no.3, the "Alpine Panorama Trail", of which we have already done the other section from the Raten Pass to the pilgrim city of Einsiedeln.

From the bus stop at the Raten Pass, one can immediately start on the Aegeri Valley Panorama Trail (Panoramaweg Aegerital), but we decided to walk up to the restaurant at the top of Mount Gottschalkenberg first

As usual, we did not stop at the restaurant as there are usually too many people smoking. But we had a look around at the interesting set-up

On a clearer day, you would get a really nice profile of the Glarus Alps from here

Starting at the Raten Pass, we first walked up to the top of the hill called Gottschalkenberg (a short and easy ascent) and then joined National Trail no.3 across the ridge and down to Unterägeri. This was an almost 12-km hike

Now joining both the "Aegeri Valley Panorama Trail" and National Trail no.3: "Alpine Panorama Trail"

In the winter of 2017-2018 there were some pretty extensive storms which did a lot of destruction in Swiss forests. We saw a lot of uprooted trees and large trees "snapped like matchsticks". 

Large, seemingly healthy trees, were snapped by gale-force winds this winter (2017-2018)

It made our walk quite interesting to always have to be scrambling over the downed trees!

Along the ridge we got a couple of peeks down to Lake Zurich to the North

Most of the view was to the South over Aegeri and Lake Aegerisee. Here to the Southwest is the standard view for this region: The low ridge (Mount Zug, where we live on the other side) and Mounts Rigi and Pilatus in the background. 

And to the South across Lake Aegerisee to Morgarten (site of an important historical battle in 1315 where the young Swiss Confederacy vanquished a much stronger legion of Austrian Habsburgers)

  

Although the section through the forest was rather cold, out in the open it was a mild Spring day

Farmers with mountain cabins or barns often offer refreshments to hikers and bikers along the popular trails

Another view SE across Lake Aegerisee

A beautiful old farmhouse at place called Schneit, on our way down the hill

Some sort of meeting of old tractors!

An album would not be complete without at least one cow photo!

In the background is one of my favourite mountains: Mt.Schärhorn (Schäre = Scissors, looks like Scissors) 

 

Sandstone "Trail Cross" on this trail which was the old trail between Aegeri and Einsiedeln

 

Back down in the town section called "Unterägeri", this is one of several old farmhouses typical of the area

Catholic parish church in Unterägeri

The orange trail is the one we did, from Raten Pass to Gottschalkenberg to Aegeri (Unterägeri). We have walked many kilometers over this terrain, as it is very close to our home town of Zug

Finsterwald to Schwarzenberg in the Entlebuch

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

Thursday 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.