We had an appointment with our master confectioner to arrange a wedding cake in Beckenried on Saturday. Since I had to get up early anyways, drove all the way out there and the weather was gorgeous, I figured I might as well continue up one of the local mountains.
One of the few I hadn't climbed yet was the Buochserhorn, so I set out on the white-blue-white trail at around 10 in the morning. It's an easy trail at first, but gets quite steep and exposed towards the end. Luckily there wasn't any snow on the dicey bits, otherwise they could easily have been impassable. The little snow there was was frozen solid and very slippery. In fact, a thin, nearly invisible, sheet of black ice made a few of the higher paved roads extremely treacherous. I'd often walk in the dirt beside them because that was easier and safer. Steel blue skies, beautiful warm golden light underneath the trees and the mountains casting their shadows on nearby Lake Lucerne - paradise ;-)
I had the entire ascent to myself but stumbled into a big picnic on the summit. The approach from the other side is much easier and can be shortened by a cable car. Thus there were lots of people sunbathing in the grass, having a small fire for roasting wieners with their kids and launching their wings, flying off the mountain. Great atmosphere. I just love the Swiss attitude towards being outdoors. Can't go skiing? Ah well, lets have a BBQ on the summit instead. Awesome.
I reached the summit a full hour sooner than the posted time, so I took advantage of the remaining daylight to scramble over the Bleiki ridge to the Musenalp. From there back down into the valley, for a total of 1500 meters and 19 kilometers.
