Muotathal

Sept 14, 2012

Jetlag is just so interesting. Yesterday, by 5:30 pm, my body hit the wall, and I went to bed. 13 hours later, I was ready to get up and face the day. Today was just fine. It seems that for me, staying awake as long as I can and then having a long sleep is how to cure jetlag. Neither Stephen nor I slept well on the plane, despite the lay-down seats - we basically just dozed. Yesterday, Stephen had a bit of an afternoon nap, but not too long. But we were both fine today.

In the morning, based on reading the hiking guide from the Lucerne Tourist Information place, we headed to a small town about 40 kms from Lucerne, as the crow flies. Definitely somewhat longer as the car drives, including a kilometer or so where the incredibly skinny road was carved out of the side of an incredibly steep mountain.

We had minimal information about the trail - it would have been so nice if the book had told us where the trail head was. In the end, we guessed. We found a parking place by a school (the book mentioned a schoolhouse), and strode off in the direction of a church. The book mentioned a "Kloster", which we took to mean a church - it really means monastery - we sort of thought about cloistered nuns, and then decided that a different building looked more like a cloister.

And we finally stumbled upon a trail sign that told us that we were on the correct path.

This was an interesting trail - it was called the Wetterfrosch trail - that means "weatherman". Each of the several signs told us a weather fact, or how to predict the weather, featuring a very funky little frog. The signs are below.

Anyway, we kept following the signs, and when we were about 100 m from the car at the end of our hike, we finally found the very first sign in the series. Oh, well! It was an interesting trek, even if we did it in a non-standard way.

The trail itself was sometimes a paved road, a gravel road, or a single-file foot path. It went through fields, forests, and residential streets.

The views were just stupendous. It was a challenge limiting the number of photos for this webpage.

So, here are some photos. First, some general gorgeous scenery (amazingly green fields):

The requisite "I was here" photo, with scenery in the background:

The requisite flower photo:

And something just a bit unusual - this cow statue-thingy was on the top of a post along the trail.

And, for those who need to see some motion, here is a video of some goats with bells. We heard a lot of cowbells and goatbells. If I were one of those animals and had to wear such a bell, I would probably not be too happy!!!

Now, for information about the trail.

This photo shows where we were supposed to walk, according to the tourist info book:

This photo shows where we were supposed to walk, according to the map at the starting point (the one we found at the end of the hike):

This Google Earth shot shows where we actually went. It almost matches, but not quite!

Now, if we had known about the website here, things might have been just a bit better!

Anyway, this is the type of trail marker we followed:

And here are some signs, with translations below (with a little help from Google Translate). You will learn something today (either weather or German!)

After a rainy day, the clouds turn red in the sunset. How is the weather in other day? It is beautiful.

The birds whistle loudly with audible tone changes. What's the weather? Until the evening it rains.

What does it mean when 10 to 20-year-old fir cones in nice weather get hooked? No later than the next morning will use the rain.

On which side you go during a thunderstorm over a rocky road? Mountain or valley? Lightning strikes in the rocks, so always walk the valley side, a few meters away from the rocks.

What will the weather when the ants in the morning very quickly move to the anthill? In the afternoon it will rain.

The grass stalks hanging droplet, spinning nets are full of water. The next day, the migration will continue. The weather is good.

As the weather continues to develop, if seep after a heavy rain the creeks quickly? The next day the rain sets in again.

What kind of weather is expected if the large red ants, vei season include the outputs and only einselne animals move slowly through the crowd? Soon it will be colder and it snows in two to three days. (Google had trouble with this one!)

What does it mean if in nice weather einselne stones are wet on the trail? It will rain in two or three hours.

The weather, the ants fly to her nuptial flight? Only the most beautiful weather flying ants. In the evening there is a thunderstorm. (Nuptial?? Certainly now how I would translate it!!)

No idea what tomorrow will bring, either weather-wise or hiking-wise. We'll check the book.

Until tomorrow.