Switzerland Day Five: Alpine Cheese Cows of Mt. Pilatus

The better portion of day five of our trip in Switzerland was spent hiking Mount Pilatus. Though Pilatus has some pretty remarkable views, which I will post throughout this article, it was the alpine cheese cows that we encountered on the mountain that made the experience special. For that reason, this post is mainly dedicated the the cows.

The beautiful beasts of the mountain.

Getting There

Though actually getting to the top of mount Pilatus was easy, researching the directions on how to do so was not. I found the directions to be overly complicated and quite confusing, especially on the main tourism website. When I consulted a generic travel forum to try to make sense of it all I noticed that a lot of others were having the same issue that I was and were asking all of the same questions.

The tourism site tell you that you that in order to get up the mountain you have to take a bus from the city of Lucerne to the town of Kriens. There you have to take a cable car up to the top of Pilatus. When you are finished exploring, you then need to take a small train down the other side of the mount to the town of Alpnachstad where you will get on another bus. The bus then takes you to a port where you will get on a boat that will finally take you back to Lucerne.

...WTF!?

Okay, but what if you are not coming from Lucerne? Or if you plan on driving yourself? Or if you don’t want to spend 400 CHF and four hours of travel time taking every possible means of transportation known to man?

"It can't be this complicated. Can it?"

The simple explanation on how to get up the mountain is; you can take the cable car to the top and back down in Kriens, or the mountain train up and down at Alpnachstad. There is parking at both locations and the buses travel to both sites as well. For additional money you can do what the website says and take one means of transportation up one side of the mountain and another means down the other, then take a bus back to your original starting point. You can also throw in the boat trip to make it extra special if you so choose. The benefit of this is that you get to see both sides of the mountain, each with their own views. The negative is that it costs significantly more money (and the simple method is already expensive to begin with) and it also takes a lot more time.

You can also hike to the top of Pilatus on a steep but non-technical trail. This takes anywhere from 2 – 4 hours depending on where you begin.

If you really want to spend some money though, you could always take a helicopter up to the top. We happened to see one taking off shortly after our arrival.

I don't see many helicopters taking off in my life other than in movies, much less from the top of a mountain, so this was actually pretty neat to see.

Going Up

We left our hotel in the Interlaken area around 8:30am and arrived in Kriens within an hour. We parked the car, paid the 64 CHF per person fee and took the cable car up the mountain. The nice thing about the cable cars is that they are continuous and there is virtually no wait to get on. The entire trip up took about 30 minutes.

There is a stopover part way up where you have to get on a larger car that comes every 15 minutes. Seats are limited to maybe 40 or so passangers.

The stopover is quite nice though. There is a restaurant with food and drinks as well as a rope course for kids. There are also some pretty awesome views from this point.

The last leg of the trip up takes only 5 minutes. Its quite high up at this point and the track is very steep as it makes its way through the clouds.

Heights are starting to get to me a little as I get older it seems. There was a point along the way where I actually got a little nervous when looking down.

On the way up we passed a small chapel situated high in the mountains, nearly at the top.

I’m not sure how you get to it but there must be a walking trail somewhere along the way. There were many trails at the top of the mountain,most of which were marked with signage. You could really spend a lot of time up there exploring if you want to make a full day out of it. We spent around 3 hours up top, I would say.

The Top of the Mountain

At the top of Pilatus is another restaurant and gift shop. Immediately outside are several walking paths to the mountain summit. If you are lucky you might hear a group of men playing a traditional Alphorn on the upper platform. I thought it was playing on a loud speaker until we turned a corner on one of the trails and saw them performing.

Most of the paths at the top are non technical and safely fenced in. They are mostly smooth as well with some minor rockiness in some locations. Nonetheless they are essentially carved into the side of the mountain.

Some even tunnel through the mountain itself.

Wildflowers thrive even this high up in the atmosphere. Small blue flowers, thistles and these pink ones that look like sedums to me.

Visibility this high up really depends on how low the clouds are. For us, the clouds began rolling in shortly after our arrival, making it difficult to see the mountains beyond or the valley below.

It would have been nice to see more of the surroundings but I personally didn't feel that the the cloud cover detracted from the experience. It was actually pretty cool seeing them roll over the mountain tops and spill into the grassy pastures.

Speaking of pastures, dotted throughout the landscape of this valley up are the alpine cheese cows. Their bells can be heard from the platform at the top of the mountain and as you make your decent into the valley. The surrounding cliffs carry their music all the way up and can be heard while hiking the landscape.

We hiked down for a closer look. As promised, this post is mainly about the cows.

The Alpine Cheese Cows of Pilatus

In the month of May of each year, approximately 27 thousand dairy cows journey up to the top of Mount Pilatus from their valley farms below. There they stay, grazing on the high altitude pastures for a few short months, before coming back down in late September.

On average these cows climb between 590 – 2000 meters high on long winding trails.

Unfortunately, each year a few cows die falling off the cliffs while wandering away from the heard in search of greener pastures. Farmers often have to put up fences in their grazing areas in order to keep the herd safe. The process of herding the cows and keeping them safe is a lot of work for the cows and for the farmer, which ultimately begs the question, why do they do it?

Well, firstly, farmers who bring their cows up into the Alps tend to get top dollar for their aromatic Alpine cheese. The pastures on the hillside offer up a variety of different types of plants not found in the valleys below which give the cheese a distinctive aromatic smell and taste as well as making it richer in omega 3 fatty acids.

Furthermore, farmers also receive a 400 CHF subsidy per cow from the government for maintaining the time honored tradition of shepherding cows up the mountain and making alpine cheese.

As an added bonus, the cows also prevent the hillside from becoming overrun by forests and allow the valley pastures to re-grow. Farmers collect hay from the valley in order to feed the cows during the cold winter months, which would not be possible if the cows stayed in the valley and ate all of the grass.

But it would seem that it’s not all about the money either.

The hours that the farmers work each day are very long and the work challenging. Compensation within the profession also tends to be relatively low in comparison to other careers. Most farmers are lucky to break even with their cheese sales and many families rely on the government subsidies in order to stay in the profession. As such, it would seem that tradition, as well as craft and prestige are the real motivating factors for these farmers.

Alpine cheese is made differently than regular cheese in that it is made with raw unpasteurized milk that is collected on the mountain. The cheese itself is often made in one of the many small drying and aging huts located on throughout the hillside. The extreme location of the facilities pose several unique challenges to the cheese making process. For instance, transporting ingredients to the site, as well as the finished product back down the mountain, can be very difficult. As such, farmers have developed different methodologies for making alpine cheese and have learned to forgo certain ingredients commonly used in cheese making. Ingredients such as salt.

One of the distinct characteristics of alpine cheese is its low salt content. Salt is hard to bring up the mountain, so very little of it is used in the process of making alpine cheese. The low salt content gives the cheese its distinctly sweet and nutty flavor and also creates the characteristic holes common in alpine cheese. CO2 expelled from bacteria cultures that thrive in the low sodium environments create small pockets in the finished product.

It would seem that the challenges of making high altitude cheese takes a distinct set of knowledge and skill, which is probably very appealing for many farmers who enjoy the craft.

There is also the mountain farming lifestyle and the uniqueness of the profession, which to me has a very prestigious air about it. I've read that many siblings fight over who is going to inherit the family herd and farm which makes me think that the lifestyle is something that is sought after.

Re: photo below

"Oooooo. Somebody loves Tonia!"

I wonder if Tonia is a person or a cow?

Along with some traditional garb, each cow wears a ceremonial bell around its neck in the fall during its return to the valley below. These are more elaborate than the ones pictured in the photographs and can cost the farmer up to 1000 CHF per bell. The bells can sometimes be seen hanging under the roofs of some chalets when they are not in use.

The bells around the cows necks are one of the most memorable experiences of mount Pilatus. 50 or more bells (I'm estimating here) could be heard echoing off the cliffs while we walked through the area. They created an ever present hilltop music that sounded a lot like wind chimes. It was distinctively peaceful and one of my favorite parts of our Mount Pilatus experience. In fact I would say that the cow bells are one of the best memories that I have of our overall trip to the country.

The cows themselves are really quite beautiful as well. I love their furry ear muff like ears. My wife named the cow in the photo above Gandalf

"You shall not pass!"

In the end the cow did let us pass. But it didn't move for us at all. It just stood there with that "why are you here" sort of look.

Thats it for now. The next stop on our trip was Lucerne. Thanks for Reading

If you are interested in seeing more of the beautiful country of Switzerland I will be posting about the rest of our trip over the next few days. For the previous post click the link below.