Just nearby where I live I have a mountain peak with a beautiful panorama view. So I’ll take you on virtual tour with high-resolution pictures to the Rigi Hochflue (1998 m).
The tour starts from the Gätterli summit (1699 m) in the morning:
Start in Gätterli: view to the South
At the summit there is a small restaurant which is not open that time in the morning. But from there the peak and the cross on it is visible already:
View from Gätterli it the Summit
From here the height difference is about 500 meters. It is rather steep hike up there. The signage at the restaurant informs about a hiking time of 1 hour and 20 minutes which is pretty accurate:
Gätterli Signage
15 minutes later there is another signage, still 1 hour and 5 minutes to go:
Alpine Trail Signage
That signage warns about that 25 meter mountain ladder at the end of the trail. Plus there is another warning about that hike: So be prepared!
Alpine Hiking Trail
On the way up friendly treeface greets everyone passing by:
Tree Face
You might meet some friendly ‘critters’ (maybe escaped of “Pokemon Go”?) on the way up:
Muh
No worries, if you respect them they will respect you :-). Below a view back to the Vitznauer Stock:
Vitznauer Stock
Below a view through the trees North-East with the Lake Lowerz. My home town is in the middle of that picture:
Lauerzersee
After one hour on a very steep trail, the summit cross comes in sight:
Hochflue in Sight
The last piece is a 25 meter mountain ladder:
Stairway
After that it opens up to a beautiful mountain meadow:
Hochflue Cross
The peak is accessible from three sides. The way back to the Gätterli is about 45 minutes:
Hochflue Peak Signage
But first to enjoy the beautiful panorama:
Hochflue Panorama
The north face falls down to the area around Lake Lauerz.
Hochflue North Face
Three lakes are around the Hochflue: Lake Zug (left), Lake Lauerz (middle) and the Lake of Four Cantons (right):
Panorama from Hochflue
But it is not only about the view: the alpine meadow hosts many beautiful flowers (see “Rigi Hochflue Alpine Flowers” for more):
Alpine Flower
Finally, time to get back down again:
Hochflue Ladder
And the friendly ‘critters’ might be still waiting for you:
Kuh macht Muh
And finally back to the Gätterli summit were we started:
Gätterli Panorama
Definitely not the most easy hike, but it was wonderful. I hope you have enjoyed that virtual tour. And if you are in the area and want to get up there too, let me know!
Happy Hiking 🙂
MCU on Eclipse 
After showing some pictures to one of my sons, he said he is ready to move … there 🙂
Our mountains about the same level, home at around 1630 and summit 1805m no where near as impressive though. It’s winter here now, so skiing in the activity, in summer we do a lot of mountain bike riding and the odd hike.
He only had one request, make sure the interweb speed is FAST!
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Hi Darren,
my home is around 650 m. The valleys have been shaped by glaciers about 10’000 years ago and filled up with lakes afterwards. Some of the lakes are up to 300 m deep, some like Lake Lowerz have been nearly filled up afterwards. Cell coverage is ok in the area, with lots of blind spots (4G and 3G coverage). You get high speed (fibre) internet connection in the larger towns, but not eveywhere else.
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Spectacular photos Erich! Thanks for sharing. I watched the Tour de France into Bern the other day and loved the scenery. I think I must holiday in Switzerland sometime.
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Hi John,
thanks, and you are certainly welcome to spend holidays over here :-).
Erich
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Stunningly gorgeous views!
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great photos Erich, and it looks like a good way to exercise and get some fresh air, even if theres no Pokemon up there. We went up Mount Corvatch from St Moritz in 2012 in Summer, taking the sky trolley.
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Hi Chad,
thanks. And actually there can be Pokemons up that mountain. I did not had that application installed, but I do know that there are Ingress Portals up there :-).
Erich
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Really tempting, nice photos Erich! What a pity http://maps.kompass.de/ does not cover Switzerland as good as Austria/Italy including trails, huts etc. Do you know of a similar site/map allowing to plan hiking tours in Swiss Alps easily at home? Without the need to buy paper or digital Android/iOS maps?
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Hi Tomas,
there is an excellent (and free!) map site from the Swiss goverment here: https://www.swisstopo.admin.ch/. Otherwise have a look here: http://www.wanderland.ch/en/hiking-in-switzerland.html
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