Anniversary - part 2 - Pilatus

This part of our anniversary blog will be long. Even with all the pictures here, I had to exclude so many pictures. Yes, we have beautiful mountains in Utah, but these alps are amazing. They are not the highest mountains in the world, but the views are spectacular. Also, it is interesting to discover that many have hotels, observatories, gondolas and railways to the tops. It was expensive, but worth it to go to the top of Pilatus. It is only about 7000 feet in elevation, but offers an unbelievable view of the whole area of Lucerne.

There is a cog-wheel railway that takes us up to the top. It starts at the little village of Alpnachstad (where we had our hotel). The train is famous as being the steepest cog-wheel train in the world. A large portion of the trip runs between 40% and 48% grade. The trip takes about 40 minutes to get to the top and cost us $150 for the round-trip (for 2). At the top, there is a hotel and restaurant and many hiking trails. People can hike the whole way up or get off or on at a half-way point on the trip. There are also several gondola rides from near Lucerne itself.

I will leave the rest of the descriptions to accompany the many photos.

This is us up on the top. We got a man to take our picture for us.

Now we will start from the beginning...

The town of Alpnachstad.

Boarding the train. You see that the cars are built on the 45° angle. They seem to be able to adjust to the varying angles of slope as we go up. They are really quite amazing.

Heading up, approaching one of the many little tunnels.

Signs along the way show the change in slope.

Occasionally looking down into the valley as we rise up the mountainside.

Looking at the city of Lucerne.

At the top there was a man who played an alphorn. It was beautiful to hear. especially as he played "Amazing Grace" and it echoed on the mountains.

At the top there were many trails. This one included many steps. The stones of the steps were fairly uneven and sometimes wobbly. On one or both sides, it dropped down a lot. As many of you know, Sister B has a great fear of edges (drops). She is faking a smile here. Maybe it is nerves.

One of the trails continues up to an observatory (closed at the time), but Sister B refused to go on. I went a little ways up.

I took a panorama movie of the view from where we were. There are several people going around us, but you get the idea anyway.

Here is a view of the buildings they built up on the top. The closest one is the Pilatus Kulm Hotel.

Behind the hotel is the pathway up a lot a steps. Sister B only made it partway before her nerves (and ankles) refused to go on.

I walked most of the way to the observatory.

Here is a view especially made for our engineer son. This would probably be a dream job for him.

A view of Lucerne and the lakes surrounding it.

The symbol of the mountain is the dragon, based on this legend.

The mountain is named Pilatus, which is Latin for Pilate (Pontius Pilate), who is reputed (by this legend) to have been buried here, his spirit haunting the place ever since. The people and the church leaders were forbidden to climb this mountain or go to the lake below.

Another view of the mountains in the area as seen from up here.

On one trail there are many signs describing the local flowers and plants.

Sister B on the trail (yes, it is on an edge).

In the valleys approaching the mountain, there are many trails and little cabins.

Sister B stopped at this point on this trail. Here she consoled a young Chinese lady who was brought up to the mountain by her German boyfriend. She was terrified by the heights.

I hiked on to the top of this section (not the end of the trail, though).

Another of the beautiful flowers along the trail. I did not ever see any edelweiss.

Back at the beginning of the trail to Tomlishorn. We made it about 90% of the way to the end of that trail.

As we were waiting for our ride back down, we saw a pair of people fly out over the top of us and soar  over the area.

On the way back down, just before entering a tunnel.

A view of the valley as we descended.

A cabin on the side as we were about half-way down.

Anniversary - part 1 - the Swiss Temple

We have made it a practice to go to the temple, when possible, on or near our anniversary dates. This year is our fortieth wedding anniversary. We began our life together as a family in the Salt Lake Temple and have had a glorious learning experience ever since. We have been truly blessed with such a wonderful family. We love (and miss) our children and grandchildren, but know that the Lord is blessing each and every one of them. Forty years ago we could not have imagined that we would be in Switzerland for our anniversary this year. It is a highlight of our lives to be able to serve the Lord together here in this land. Our only regret is not being able to have our dear ones with us at this time.

These three blog posts will give you a glimpse of the beauty here. The first is of our experiences at and near the temple. Of course, we cannot share what we experience in the temple, but it was wonderful. We were able to do family name work for some of our members here. We first were able to do some initiatory ordinance work. At first, I had some concerns that it was not going to be possible, because of the limited number of workers at the temple that day, but there were wonderful people there who helped us. Sister B. was able to do some names and hers were in France and Italian. On my side, my workers spoke French and Italian as well, but one was totally blind as well. Our sessions those two days were first in French (we were witnesses) and German.

Following the temple work, we headed out to Lucerne. Our next stop was to visit the mountain there, called Pilatus. That will be in the next post.

I was able to get this beautiful picture in the morning, just as the sun was rising and the temple lights were about to be turned off.

Here is Sister B approaching the temple

In fairness, she insisted on taking a picture of me as well.

Here is the Herberge (Hostel) where we stayed the night. It is a very spartan accommodation, but very welcome to the travelers who come to the temple from many lands.

A view of the alps from the front of the temple.

We went to a hotel restaurant for a meal the first night. It was a very nice meal. Our waiter spoke English. He was from Pakistan.

Clouds and mountains on our approach to Lucern.

Missionaries, changes, snails and odd signs

Last Sunday one of the wards in our stake (Winterthur, Switzerland) produced a wonderful fireside, focused on the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Several of the missionaries have some special talents in music, art and video production. This is the second musical fireside that they have produced. The first one was back in June and has been redone in other wards. They have been able to bring a lot of people in who are not yet acquainted with the church and its teachings.

Elder Jödicke did the artwork for the advertising flier as well.

We also had a nice Zone Training meeting in St. Gallen, Switzerland on Tuesday. We have been doing a bit more traveling than usual these past weeks. It is great to be a part of the great work here and in Switzerland.

In our travels, we picked up a few other interesting pictures as well, including a few I only have here because they struck me as unusual or amusing. Here they are, with a few comments.

Here is Elder Smith as we were finishing the Zone Training meeting.

Elder Jödicke also did a quick drawing on the board, making a point in one of his presentations. He is one of our zone leaders. I wanted to make sure I snapped the picture before they erased it.

Our Elder Richman has been transferred to Wiener Neustadt in Austria. We will miss him.

Elder Smith helping with the luggage.

On another day, we crossed the Bodensee (Lake Constance) as a zeppelin was flying overhead.

A few colorful snails on a rose bush.

the only rose on that bush

An interesting old car driving out of the city gate (Frauentor) in Ravensburg.

On this building are two signs. The upper sign reads: "Hengge Driving School." the bottom one: "Hengge Burials."

This is a local bier. It is actually called "Little boy beer." It is only a symbol for the company, but you have to wonder what it says about underaged drinking.

Säntis

We had a zone P-Day activity on September 1st (Labor Day for those in the US, nothing special here). We attended it though we did not have a lot of information about what we would be doing. It turned out that the plans were to climb to the top of Mount Säntis, the highest point in this part of Switzerland (somewhat over 8000').

Before I get to that, I wanted to say that we have had some great experiences in church. We have a new family that just moved in and along with that, we have had a number of vacation visitors, so our attendance has averaged over 30 this month (Sacrament Meeting). We now have a primary and ordained a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, our first young man in many years.

We have been getting back to visit some of the members and have been enjoying that again.

Now for the pictures. We drove to Urnäsch and took the bus with the missionaries to Schwägalp, which is basically the base of Mount Säntis. They have a hotel there and the lower end of a gondola ride to the top of the mountain. You can guess how we climbed the mountain. The main group  of missionaries hiked about 4 hours or so to get to the top. What we all did not know was that, as it was raining lightly where we were at the bottom, they would be slogging through about 6 inches of snow in freezing wind and ice at the top.

This one was a picture of our area the day before.

A large railroad viaduct on the way up to the hike.

The missionary group starting their climb in the rain.

in the gondola, not yet into the clouds

entering the clouds

and ice

There were videos showing what we could not see due to the clouds (not really, it was a documentary about the mountain goats and other animals in the area).

With the fam. (a headless pose stand). You can guess who had the camera.

Stepping out at the top so I could climb to the actual peak (about 100 feet to go).

Approaching the top.

A display about the local music.

An art exhibit in honor of cows. No, this is not a Chic-fil-a ad. They had numbers of pictures and sculptures of cows in various poses, many from behind shots.

a sampler of artwork

President Kohler with the missionaries, most of whom did the hike.

A display of the wildlife.

A stein eagle

Sister Schwabe looking at the eagle

On the way down. The clouds were clearing.

a few waterfalls

On our way back, we stopped by Liechtenstein for the elders' sake.

some bells at a local church

this one has a date of 1509.