Written from the valley floor

Who we are

WIDE, 1600×900You in the valley. Outdoors, doing something ordinary.

I live on the floor of the Lauterbrunnen valley with my wife and our son, who was born here. We hike, we ski, and in summer we paddleboard on the lake. Winter is our favourite season, which makes us unusual among visitors and entirely ordinary among locals.

I run Chalet Staubbach, three self-catering places at the foot of the falls, and I write this guide. My other job is consulting, which I do from home. That matters more than it sounds: it means I am here on an ordinary Tuesday in November, not only when the weather is good and the trains are full.

How we got here

WIDE, 1600×900The valley, or the Staubbach Hotel, or an old family photo if you have one.

My grandparents found Lauterbrunnen by accident. They were travelling up through Italy on their honeymoon in the 1950s, came over into the valley, and stopped. They stayed at the Staubbach Hotel, which is still standing today.

They brought me here for the first time in 1984. What I remember is the mountains, and the river thundering down through the valley. I was too small to have any sense of scale and it was simply the biggest thing I had ever seen.

I kept coming back, on and off, for the next thirty years. A little over ten years ago I left the UK to study in France, and from France I moved here properly. Three generations, one valley, and the hotel my grandparents honeymooned in is a few minutes up the road.

Why this guide exists

Most of what is written about this valley is written by people who came for a week. That is not a criticism, it is just a limit. They cannot tell you what the valley floor is like in late November, which trails actually open when, or why the waterfall path is shut in March, because they were not here.

So this guide is built on a few rules, and they are worth stating plainly because they are the whole reason to trust it:

• Real prices, from the operator. Every figure on this site, from the Jungfrau ski pass to the CHF 18 entry at the Trümmelbach, comes from the company that charges it, with a link so you can check.
• Where we do not know, we say so. Lauterbrunnen Tourism does not publish the dates the Staubbach path opens and closes. Rather than invent a date that reads well, the waterfalls page says nobody publishes it and tells you to ask locally.
• Dates that change get checked. Every page carries the date it was last verified, and that date only moves when the page actually changes.
• We say when we have skin in the game. We run three of the places on the stay page. It says so, in the first paragraph, every time.

What we actually do here

WIDE, 1600×900Winter. Snow, wood, the ski shuttle, whatever says February.

In summer the valley is loud with meltwater and we are mostly on the trails or on the lake. In autumn the cows come down off the alps and the village has a fortnight of being entirely itself again. In winter, which is the one we wait for, the valley floor gets maybe four hours of direct sun and the whole place goes quiet and blue, and the skiing above is some of the best in the Alps for a fraction of what it costs in Colorado.

That is the honest version. If you want the useful version, start with the month-by-month calendar, which is the heart of this site, or go straight to where to stay.

Getting in touch

If something on this site is wrong, out of date, or reads as though it was written by someone who has never stood in the valley in February, tell me. The fastest way is through the Airbnb listings, or on Instagram.