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Pocket Switzerland

Pilatus

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Summit · canton of Obwalden · 2128 m

Jagged silhouette above Lucerne, served by the steepest rack railway in the world.

From the basket

Above Lucerne, Pilatus rises like a jagged fortress right on the shore of Lake Lucerne. From the balloon its outline is nothing like a well-behaved cone: it is a crown of rocky points, straddling three cantons. The highest, the Tomlishorn, reaches 2,128 metres; the Esel, barely lower, is the one people climb for the view.

On the south side, the flank plunges towards the lake and its arms that slip between the mountains. On the north side, small valleys run down towards Kriens and the outskirts of Lucerne. In clear weather the whole lake country spreads out beneath the basket, and the great Alps close off the horizon.

There are two ways up. A cable car arrives on one side; on the other, since 1889, runs the steepest rack railway in the world, with gradients of forty-eight per cent. The mountain is also known for its thunderstorms, which often swell the streams in its valleys.

For a long time it bore another name, Frakmünt, the “broken mountain”, which suits its fractured ridges well. Circle the crown slowly, then let yourself sink towards the quays of Lucerne.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Pilate (montagne)” (in French); Wikipedia, “Pilatus (Berg)” (in German).

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