St Luc – Illhorn and the four lakes

We had decided to take the just opened chair lift to Tsape as there was an ‘easy’ 4 km walk visiting 4 lakes. There was also a spur to the top of Illhorn.

Our experience of chair lifts was very limited and this showed! David dropped his coin purse while buying the tickets and didn’t realise until we were up top and poor Dawn got travel sick. Some definitely enjoyed the experience however.

Dawn felt too unwell to start the walk so she and Lorraine visited the cafe and walked locally ending up at the fourth lake.

The rest of us set off on the walk. The first part was easy. When we got to the Illhorn spur three of the group found a good spot and had a long coffee break. The other five of us tackled the summit. This took just less than an hour up and down and was straightforward. Good views and it was good to get to a top.

Track of walk

The fun then started. We joined the rest and tackled a tricky downhill. Not really tricky for youngsters but not easy for us. We had lunch at the bottom. The rest of the walk was straightforward apart from a longish uphill section. This needed a few breathers!

We met Dawn and Lorraine at the fourth lake and then returned to the head of the chair lift. Some, who were less happy with the lift decided to walk the funicular. Others went down in the lift. The purse was picked up and we returned to the hotel, after a rather hot wait for a bus.

The others found the walk to the funicular less straightforward than expected and poor Chris F took a nasty tumble. They made it in time to have a drink before the last train. Everybody was tired that evening.