I have been busy with too many things, so I apologize: no techy blog post this weekend. But what I can share is a unique wonder of nature encountered during a bike trip today at the end of the Klöntalsee:
Trees growing on a tree (click to enlarge)
I love to commute by train, and I use three different Swiss train companies for my daily work commute to the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences in Horw, near Lucerne. Returning this evening, I enjoyed a beautiful view to the snow-covered mountains from my home destination. I’m lucky, and this is yet another reason why I love my commute:
View from Train Station
Amazing to see what a few sunny and warm days can do in nature:
Spring Awakening
Happy Springing 🙂
Coming out of a project meeting Friday evening, the following wisdom came to my mind:
“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.” – Anonymous
Maybe you remember my recent post “Schwanau on Ice” with walking on the frozen Lake Lauerz? I mentioned in that post that there are natural gas bubbles caught under the ice. There is a long (and dangerous!) tradition to burn that gas. That this is really dangerous shows this a short video going viral on ‘WhatsApp’ today:
Methane Gas Explosion (Source: http://www.20min.ch)
During cold winters the Lake Lauerz gets covered with ice. And if it is cold enough for a few weeks it gets enough ice to have it completely covered more than 15 cm of ice. That’s the time of the year to enjoy a walk or to play ice hokey:
Schwanau mit Mythen
Winter is tough in Switzerland. What could be better than to escape the ground fog and go up the sunny side?
View from Obhäg (Click to enlarge)
View from the Obhäg towards the central Switzerland Alps.
Happy Escaping 🙂
Cold and humid air are forming beautiful sculptures these days. The image shows the leaves of a Japanese Umbrella-Pine (Sciadopitys):
Frosted Sciadopitys Leaves
Happy Frosting 🙂
A benefit getting up early on a Sunday morning is the chance to watch a beautiful sunrise:
Red Morning
Happy Sunday 🙂
A sunrise which reminds me that nature creates the most beautiful pictures:
Mythen Sunrise
Scene created by the Föhn wind moving clouds over the Swiss Alps, and the sun rising behind the Mythen mountains.
Happy Sunrising 🙂
Mother nature offered an interesting puzzle this morning: a sunrise with beautiful light sculptures. But where is the sun?
Morning sunlight without the Sun?
‘Inversion‘ is an interesting meteorology phenomena: normally the air temperature gets colder the higher you get up in the mountains. With the inversion situation it is the other way round: cold air in the lower areas building a sea of fog, and warmer air and sunshine up above. Perfect for a hike, so sharing pictures from last weekend.
The first one is from the Haggenegg in Canton Schwyz, with the view to the South:
Inversion, view from Haggenegg (click to enlarge)
The Carlina Aucalis (we call it locally the “Silberdistel”) is native to alpine regions in central Europe. When all the other flowers disappear in fall time, the Silberdistel is worth a stop while hiking in higher alpine regions.
White Silberdistel
The past weeks have been extremely busy with the new semester started. As a result, no time for new posts on this blog for nearly three weeks :-(.
Until my projects-in-progress about MQTT, Time-of-Flight sensors, LoRa (long range) wireless networking and a cool robotics project are ready, here is something to share with you all: a cool time-lapse video of my home and work area, created by Pirmin Henseler: 2 years, 30’000 pictures, 2 broken cameras, and the result is amazing:
It reminds me again how beautiful the world is.
Happy Timelapsing 🙂
Gnipen
On Sept. 2nd 1806, after a period with lots of rain, an estimated volume of 40 millions m3 of conglomerate rock slid down from the Gnipen, killing 457 people.
The Haggenegg is a summit at 1414 m between Schwyz and Alpthal. The summit played an important role during the “Marchenstreit“: a border conflict starting around the year 1100 between Schwyz and the Einsiedeln Abbey.
Sunrise from the Haggenegg
The Lilium Martagon (Turk’s Cap Lily, Lily of Istanbul, Sultan Lily or Dragon Lily.) grows up to 2 meters and is one of the most beautiful lily flower in my area. I can find it mostly around 1000-1200 m in the nearby Alps, e.g. on the Rigi mountain range.
Lilium Martagon
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
With the beautiful Alps just outside the door step, I hiked up to the Rigi Hochflue on Sunday, so I can share pictures of alpine flowers at 1698 m (click to enlarge):
The Schwanau is a little island in Lake Lauerz. It is occupied by a ruined castle, a chapel and a restaurant:
Insel Schwanau Panorama
