An Englishman who traded life in the UK for a mountain in the Swiss Alps finds himself completely cut off from the world every day at 4pm. Steve Wainwright, now the lift manager at Mount Pilatus, spends his days helping visitors ascend the alpine peak, but once the cable car stops running, he and his colleagues are stranded until the next morning.
Life at the Top
Mount Pilatus first opened as a mountain-top visitor attraction in 1860. Originally, visitors had to hike up on foot—a journey still possible in summer. However, with the opening of Hotel Pilatus Kulm in 1890 came a cog railway, described as the steepest in the world. The challenging terrain means that everything the hotel needs, including food and luggage, must be delivered by cable car. Once that service stops for the day, nothing can go up or down the massive mountain.
Speaking on Channel 4's World's Most Secret Hotels, station worker Steve Wainwright explained: "After 4 o'clock we don't transport anymore. Once the cable car stops running, the mountain is cut-off, that's it, no more. If you've forgotten your toothbrush, you've not got a toothbrush. There's not many places in the world where the door closes and you're there for the night whatever happens."
Hotel Operations
Pilatus Kulm restaurant manager Michel Hummel added that "everything" the hotel needs comes via the gondolas, and any surplus must go back the same way. He said: "All of the stuff that we need, the drinks, the food, they have to bring up everything by the gondola and bring it down too. If there is food waste, we have to send it down again."
Sitting at around 2,128.5 metres (6,983 feet) is not without problems. The hotel must remain open regardless of weather, meaning staff could face winds up to 120 mph one moment and blazing sunshine the next.
Staff and Weather Challenges
Hotel manager Marcus Bussinger leads a team of 100 people, many living on top of the mountain. He said: "It's a very special place, you are quite isolated here and it makes everything very special. The weather can change every few minutes, it can be very stormy with winds up to 200 km/h and on a sunny day, the weather is perfect, you can relax, you can sunburn, but even in summer it can be snowy as well, so we have to be prepared the whole year."
Visiting Mount Pilatus
Visitors to Switzerland in summer often attempt the Golden Round Trip. This involves a boat across stunning Lake Lucerne, catching the cogwheel railway from Alpnachstad, then taking panoramic gondolas down the mountain, and finishing with a trolleybus back to Lucerne. The mountain itself consists of several peaks, the highest being Tomlishorn at 2,128.5 metres (6,983 feet), followed by Widderfeld at 2,076 metres (6,811 feet). The cog railway has a gradient of 48 percent in places and operates seasonally between May and October, while the cable car, which takes under four minutes, runs all year.
