On a good day, it’s a whole day excursion. Don’t miss out exploring the Zugspitzplatt area, as well as the summit. Visit both parts of the summit, Bavarian and Austrian. IMX, the cafe on the Austrian side is typically less busy, if you want to save time in queues. And if you have time, also walk around the Eibsee (about 2 hours).

Yes, we did the Gatterl hike in July. We started in Ehrwald at 8:00 a.m. taking the cable car Ehrwalder Almbahn. There is a big parking place (only daily parking 8:00-21:00, no camping, no campers allowed), from Ehrwalder Alm we hiked. The path was good, for us mid-demanding, nearly all the 11km going up (only 2 short descents); we had 2 short stops for refreshment and 1 longer stop with lunch in the Knorrhütte. The whole walk took 5,5 hours to get to Zugspitzplatt, where we decided to take a cable car to the top instead of climbing. The sign showed that the last part of the trek takes 1,5 hours, but being already tired and seeing very steep climb ahead with many people there crawling on all fours, clouds with rain coming and a small altitude problem, we gave it up. We used Gletscherbahn instead. And we did well. Just 15 minutes after getting to the top, the rain came so we had only few moments to enjoy the beautiful views. There are some pubs on the top, we had a rest, visited museum and then took the cable car Zugspitzbahn down. The last cable car is scheduled for 4:40 p.m., and we took the one at 4:20p.m. If we had climbed we would have came wet to the top, hadn´t chance to see anything and hardly took the last trip down to Ehrwald. Here we visited small museum. Last bus No. 3 from Talstation Tiroler Zugspitzbahn went at 5:05p.m. and transferred us to our starting point (Ehrwalder Alm parking place) in 15 minutes. We really liked the trip, even we had to leave the last part for next time. The only disadvantage is the crowds of visitors on the top. Thanks to many cable cars going up, the peak is quite reachable place. We bought so called Wander Ticket Gatterl - a package of 3 cable cars, 2 small museums and the bus from one cable car to the other. The price for the adult was 44,-Eur.