Volker, Chris and Fabian were staying with us for a few days. We joined up with Tim, Friederike and Ludwig on Saturday for a nice picknick at lake Bannalp. Beautiful weather meant lots of people with their kids. The lake features a kids trail with playground style stops. Ludwig and Fabian were happy sitting at the creek, tasting rocks. Ludwig turned out to be a true connoisseur, deliberately and meticulously dipping every single pebble into the creek before eating it. Fabian was less discriminating, stuffing rocks into his mouth as they came.
We had a nice place in the shade below some trees before the cows showed up. One of them was really aggressive and attacking people. It ate through our neighbor's picknick supplies and rammed a stroller (empty!) down the slope. I had a short stand off with it, pushing it back. In the end all humans fled behind the fenced-in playground and waited out the siege. We packed up and continued our walk around the lake. I have encountered hundreds of cows on my hikes, many of which inquisitive and curious, none aggressive. Must have had a bad day.
On Sunday Volker and I set out for a long hike while the ladies went to the wildlife park in Langnau. We kept a good pace and climbed the Niederbauen Chulm (1923m) with sweeping 360 degree vistas across Lake Lucerne. The summit was quite crowded because of the comfortably easy trail and cable car getting you most of the way there (we started in the valley of course!). As soon as we continued on to our next summit though we left the Sunday crowds behind us. The trail, now marked white-blue-white, got markedly more exposed and steeper. Getting onto the ridge required some scrambling and from there to the summit of the Oberbauenstock (2117m) was barely a trail at all.
We continued along the long ridge to the West with the intention of climbing the Schwalmis (2246m) too. Clouds were moving in and the wind got markedly cooler. Checking the weather forecast it now predicted a thunderstorm for late afternoon. We didn't want to get caught in lightning high up on the ridge, so we decided to bail. Two summits is nothing to be ashamed of for a day's work after all. Also, this left time for a board game night with the ladies ;-)
~22km
~+-2000m
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