Hotel Mittaghorn

We had a wonderful stay as a family of five. We knew about the rustic conditions, and hike up the hill to get here due to Tim’s great communication and loved it. Our rooms overlooked the majestic mountains and the only sounds we heard were from the cow bells ringing in the fields. We were served a lovely, simple breakfast each morning. Tim had great hiking suggestions based on the weather conditions and we couldn’t be happier. We knew this hotel wasn’t for everyone, and we preferred it that way. Those requiring more amenities happily stayed up the hill in Murren, keeping Gimmelwald perfectly quiet and rustic. The pay shower made us giggle, and added to the fun! There was a large balcony at the end of the hall as well as a tables outside where we were able to eat simple evening meals. We also read out on the covered balcony on a rainy afternoon, super cozy! This experience seems like a gem from times past to be treasured.. We were honored to briefly run into Walter on several occasions during our stay. Hope to stay again sometime- this may be a favorite place on the planet, the hiking accessible from here blew our minds!

The view of the Alps from our room was breathtaking. The hotel was rustic, but clean and very friendly. Tim is a special guy, with lots of stories and advice about the area. We have stayed at ‘Walter’s’ many time and will never forget the tasty dinner and the good wine. I hope the hotel reopens so we can bring our grandchildren here some day. This is my favorite spot in Switzerland.

My wife, daughter and I stayed here in June 2019 for three days/nights and had a fabulous time. The mountain chalet is in fact very rustic, but it was clean and was not lacking for anything. We brought along our own groceries and had lunch and dinner on our own while a small breakfast was provided each morning. There are plenty of hiking trails located directly behind the chalet and host Tim was kind enough to lend me his trekking poles. The gondola ride up (and I mean UP) to Gimmelwald was awesome. We will fondly remember our stay there for the rest of our lives!

Returned after nearly 30 years, to share this slice of alpine paradise with our children. Hotel Mittaghorn (aka Walter’s) is as charming as ever. It might creak a little bit, but then so do we. It was lovely to see Walter and our host Tim was exceptionally welcoming and helpful as we planned our days walking in the mountains. We are very thankful to Tim for being so accommodating. The breakfast provided great fuel for the mornings. While you can no longer have an evening meal at Walter’s, you are welcome to picnic in the dining room, which we did. You can also wander down the hill to the Pension for a lovely meal and/or drink.||We highly recommend you stay at Hotel Mittaghorn. We were all very sad to leave, however, have promised to return.

I came to Hotel Mittaghorn in 2009 and i fell in love with the amazing service and kindness from Tim and Walter and i adored Gimmelwald and the surrounding areas. After coming back after ten years, i have to say nothing has changed! I just felt at home and Tim is so great with hiking advice and paragliding tips! He knows the place inside out and is very helpful. The breakfast is great because you sit with everyone and meet new people and have fun. The rooms are perfect little cabin rooms, with amazing views and very cosy. Overall a 10/10 experience for me and i will definitely come back again soon!

This was our fourth visit to the Mittaghorn in about 20 years.||||The place changes so little it plays tricks with your mind, and gives that odd feeling of déjà vu or an almost recollected dream. It almost felt we had never left from our last trip.||||Walter no longer cooks but that’s no big deal, the last time we were here nearly 10 years ago the food had already rather lost its sparkle and the portions were meager for our needs, but Walter was 84 then and I was amazed he was still cooking. Apparently the authorities finally stopped him from cooking dinners three years ago.||||It is a little sad that the dining room does not have the evening life it once had, and that is probably the biggest change from the old days. The dinner groups would sit around for hours drinking Walters free wine, which was really the main reason to have dinner there! Now the bar is hardly stocked but Tim encourages you to buy drinks in Muerren and keep them in the guest fridge.||||Walter has a lower profile than ever, but can be heard moving around the hotel with his sticks (kind of creepy in the night) and during breakfast can sometimes be heard swearing loudly or screaming in the kitchen. (If you have a sensitivity to colorful vocabulary this could be a problem, but Tim explained its probably because he has pain in his hips).||||We tried to have a conversation with him on our last day but he was obviously not in the mood, which was a shame.||||For dinner options gimmelwald is now very limited, as the hostel no longer has a pizza restaurant and the pension restaurant serves a set menu that must be booked ahead. It used to be so great eating pizza outside at the mountain hostel. We did eat once at the Pension and the food was fine, but portions not too large. They do make their own beer now though which is well worth trying.||||With Tims help we were able to make a healthy salad one evening and picnic at the hotel. We were also able to make tea using a kettle in the kitchen at any time. If you look in the kitchen its not hard to understand why Walter was stopped from cooking. It is totally unmodernised and has a 100 year old range which is fueled by wood. The pots and pans hanging from the walls look ancient and untouched in years. The walls are covered in cracked tiles from a different era. Its difficult to imagine how Walter cooked dinners in this place for 40 years!||||A couple of evenings we ate in Muerren, once at the Eiger Hotel, quite a splurge but excellent food and service. Also at Thams Chinese restaurant which was very tasty and good value, in fact the night we ate there everyone at the Mittaghorn ended up there with us. Great fun. Thams also stays open until 10pm, which is later than most restaurants in Muerren.||||We also did our favourite hikes and ate lunches at the Rotstockhutte and Obersteinberg. Always a memorable experience and a welcome reward for the effort of getting up there. The weather was excellent and dry everyday, despite weather.com predicting rain for the entire stay.||||Tim arranged for us to go paragliding with his pilot friends in the valley and we had an amazing time looking at the valley from a new perspective. It was also surprisingly relaxing and easy to do!||||The real gem of the Mittaghorn is undoubtedly Tim, whose advice and local knowledge is worth the price of an overnight alone. The hotel also remains simply the cheapest place you will find a private comfortable room in the area. Despite the recent negative review, we found nothing to agree with the comments of that writer and the hotel was more than adequately clean in both the rooms and bathrooms. ||||Both the hotel and its owner are getting visibly older all the time and its hard to imagine what its future will hold, but our 5 night visit was spiritually refreshing and the place still has enough charm and simplicity to warrant a recommendation to newcomers.||||Given its prospects, this may have been our last visit to the hotel, but I cannot imagine where else we would want to stay in the area.

We ventured to Gimmelwald 5 yrs ago and stayed at Walter's. I think about his place every so often and plan to go back soon. Hoping that not much has changed, including the creaky floors and cowbells you hear across the hotel. On the balcony you can watch the daily march of the cows, catching a peek of the mountains, and enjoying a place of complete peace. Walter's isn't your luxury hotel. It's a place you go to entirely enjoy the mountains and the down-to-earth ambience it provides travelers. It's a place to connect with other adventurers who've been lucky enough to venture here.

While trekking from murren to gimmelwald we stopped here to drink beer and take a break. The cafe didn’t have a lot to eat other than some sandwiches. The old gentleman was very very polite and sweet. We later headed to mountain hostel for lunch but will always remember this quaint little hotel run by this very polite gentleman

We had a wonderful stay in September. Tim was an excellent host-- very reasonable, helpful and otherwise personable. We found out after our arrival that this appears to attract almost exclusively readers of Rick Steve's guides (admittedly this is how we found out about it, too). However, it turns out this demographic is largely retired people. While one couple our age was there, meals were shared with a group who had been making an annual pilgrimage since retirement and an Australian couple just passing through. Tim did a great job communicating the possibility that dinner would not be cooked if Walter (the proprietor) didn't feel well or not enough people requested it, so it was no surprise when we needed to find our own meal at the pension down the street on the first night. Tim also let us rent hiking poles (which turned out to be essential) very cheaply, and while we ended up on a bit of an ambitious hike considering our fitness level, we felt very prepared with Tim's advice and the map he drew. There were no private rooms when we booked, but Tim let us take two beds in the quad room, which he kindly pushed together. No one rented the other two beds, but I wasn't sure whether Tim purposefully blocked them off for us or they just weren't filled. Either way, the view from the balcony was beautiful! The cows across the street wore bells that sounded like wind chimes, so for us city folk it was a happy medium between mountain quiet and street noise. There are about 3-5 other B&B/pension/hostel-type establishments in the village part of Gimmelwald. Hotel Mittaghorn is a 5-minute walk uphill beyond the village (or 10-15 with luggage taking the longer but paved and less steep route). The entire village consists of about 20 buildings: 3-5 B&B/pension/hostels, and then a bunch of cottages and barns. I'd return to Gimmelwald and Hotel Mittaghorn but I might split up my stay to see what the other places in the village are like.