In 1978, after four years at Northeastern University in Boston, I did not get the job I really wanted, I enrolled for a semester at the American College (now University) in Paris, ended up staying for two years, working as an au pair and living on $311/mo. Thus started my hosteling experience (you don't stay in many hotels on $311/mo. and night trains were how you got to travel cheap). One of the places I heard about was this rustic hostel in a town called Gimmelwald high in the Swiss Alps; no cars, no stores to speak of (you had to bring your own food in). In the fall of '79, my beautiful friend Shari came for a visit to Paris for three weeks and almost two months later she was still with me and we decided to set out for Gimmelwald (Nov.). We arrived early in the morning in Interlaken West and walked to the station at Interlaken Ost to get the local train into the mountains. That first journey on a beautiful sunny day by train from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and then by postal bus to Stechelberg and finally our first cable car ride up the sheer cliff to Gimmelwald was amazing; standing outside the hostel gazing at the mountains surrounding us was almost surreal. I thought I had never seen a sight so beautiful. Halfway through the week we were there, the first real snows fell and after the sun shown all day, that night all of us staying at the hostel stood out on the porch listening to the rumbles of avalanches in the mountains. There is great hiking from there to the valley, the caves, other waterfalls and over to the ridge opposite the town.
I continued to make trips back to Gimmelwald and on one of those trips (in my 30th birthday year), my friend and co-worker Skip and Karen, a pediatrician from Montreal, Canada who was staying at the hostel, decided to hike the Schilthorn. It was October (my favorite time to visit the BO) and there was not any snow on the lower elevations. The day was so sunny and warm. we tied our coats around our waists. Our 6 hr. hike took us through Murren, to a restaurant sitting out in a meadow above Murren, to amazing overlooks along the way and finally to a long, flat, rocky ledge about 300 m. below the summit where we hit our first real snow. Climbing up to the summit, the snow was never more than knee-deep but we were wearing hiking boots and it was not really a problem. The view from the top can't be described; see it for yourself. We thought we would hike back down a different way and so took the path to Birg. That path had a sheer drop of what looked like a thousand feet straight down on one side and we found ourselves leaning to the right to make sure we didn't tip over. When we reached Birg, Skip was suffering from a mild case of altitude sickness (beware!) (his face actually took on a pale green look), so we took the cable car back to Gimmelwald. This was one of the great adventures of my life!
Today, I am 61 and don't stay in hostels anymore. My new home on vacation is the Hotel Alpina in Murren with the fabulous balconies that look straight down into the Lauterbrunnen Valley and out over the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. But every two years, I have returned to Gimmelwald to re-visit, for me, one of the most beautiful places in the world I have ever been. I would encourage you to visit the Mountain Hostel there (which has been totally modernized), say "hello" to Petra and Walter who run the hostel, order a pizza, have a beer and maybe, if you are lucky and at the right time of the season, stand out on the porch and listen to the mountains speaking to you. That is Gimmelwald!