Climbing the Rigi Hochflue

We've climbed the Rigi Hochflue before and really enjoyed it, so we decided for a repeat.

We meet M, a colleague of Greg's, at the gondola and spare ourselves some unneccesary vertical. From the top of the gondola we follow the trail along the top (beautiful weather, beautiful views) to the alp at Egg and then follow the smaller trail/cowpath into the woods. Finding the start of the ladders takes longer this time (we end up too low), but we do get the eventually and start our way up, up to the beginnings of the routes (Note to ourselves: the first time we did this we wore helmets for this part... we didn't think of it this time, but we definitely should have).

We opt to climb Edelwis again and enjoy the slabby, but mostly relatively non-stressy climbing. We haven't climbed as a team of three since Mt Whitney (and that was different since we were with a guide), and we do swap the lead at each stand, which adds a bit of complexity, but we enjoy orselves and make decent time (all things considered). At the end of the route we have a snack and then pack the gear away and continue on to the Hochflue itself. It's madness up here! Loads of people enjoying the great weather and views. We find a good place to sit a ways further back along the ridge and have a food and view break before starting the descent.

We've been on the Hochflue a few times and always descended via the ladder towards Gätterlipass, but today we opt to head down the other side, towards the lake. This is clearly more popular and barely deserves to be blue-white, but it takes us efficiently down, down to the west ridge. Here we follow the path down, down to Gersau. We say bye to M and then catch a bus to Vitznau, where we get the boat to Luzern (the bus is late, but the bus driver has called ahead and the boat waits for us... yay!) . Given the Sunday crowds, we buy first class tickets for the boat and the train from Luzern... definitely a good decision. Nice boat ride along the lake and then the standard train trip back home.

Fun day!

Track:

Stats: ~6:30, 9km (hiking), ~400m up (hiking), ~1359m down (hiking)