with fresh water and slaked a well-earned thirst, knowing there’s a mattress with your name on it for the night ahead. Contentment is one word for it.
So it was one glorious summer’s evening at the Lindauer Hut, as the big limestone walls nearby softened in the lingering dusk. Seated on the terrace, I was served my meal to the sound of finches chittering in a grove of pine and larch trees. One flew to an upper cone, where it perched, threw back its head and called to the dying sun. I ached from days of wandering alone over meadow, ridge and summit in an orgy of pleasure, and the finch’s song gave voice to the way I felt.
Meal over, shadows were swallowing screes when I went for a stroll to ease muscles still taut from a long day over rough ground. Heading across a neighbouring alp, then along a path under turrets catching the alpenglow, I turned a corner and came face to face with a tanned octogenarian in cord breeches with red braces, checked shirt and Tyrolean felt hat, who looked as though he’d emerged from a 19th-century painting by ET Compton. His pale, watery eyes shone, his leathery skin folded into innumerable creases, and a day’s white stubble bristled his chin.
‘Is this not the most wonderful of evenings?’ he demanded, in a breathless German dialect.
I agreed that it was, and for 10 minutes or so we shared a common delight in the slumbering mountains and their gullies, the valley, the chaos of boulders at the foot of the screes, the alpenroses, streams, a small green pool, and the rim of dwarf pines that outlined a nearby moraine. He had known 60 or more Alpine summers in his 80-plus years, yet his enthusiasm was as fresh as that of a 16-year-old. It lit his features and bubbled from every pore, and I noticed, when we parted, a surprising spring to his step, as though by sharing his love of life he’d been rejuvenated.
When is a hut not a hut
With so many European languages, it’s hardly surprising that there’s a variety of different words to describe a mountain hut in the Alps:
cabane – French-speaking Alps (see also refuge)
capanna – Lepontine Alps of Switzerland (Ticino)
chamanna – Romansch-speaking Switzerland
dom – Alps of Slovenia (see also koca)
Hütte – Alps of Austria, Bavaria, Liechtenstein and German-speaking Switzerland
koca – Alps of Slovenia
refuge – French-speaking Alps
rifugio – Italian Alps and Lepontine Alps of Switzerland
Seen from the Stripsenjochhaus in Austria, Ellmauer Halt turns to bronze with the setting sun
2 Hut life
An overcrowded hut often means a poor night’s rest… On the other hand some huts are absolute havens of stillness and calm…
(John Barry, Alpine Climbing)
You don’t have to be a member of an Alpine Club to stay in a mountain hut, for the vast majority are open to all-comers, whether privately owned or belonging to one of the national mountaineering organisations. Most are staffed during the main summer season, which usually extends from late June until the end of September – opening dates depend on location, altitude and, in some cases, the depth of the previous winter’s snow – while some are also open for a few weeks in the late winter/spring ski-touring season. A growing number in the most popular districts are occupied all year round. When manned, meals and drinks will be on offer; but off-season, when there’s no warden in residence, there will often be a ‘winter room’ available, containing little more than a few basic necessities like bunks, blankets and perhaps a wood-burning stove and a supply of fuel. At such times, the water supply may be a long way off, leading to a search for a spring or stream, or, when the ground is blanketed in snow, may involve having to melt snow or ice.
At the beginning of the season, the Coaz Hut in the Bernina Alps may be half hidden by a wall of snow
There are also those simple unguarded refuges, usually located in a remote district, where facilities are minimal and you need to carry practically everything with you, including stove, fuel and food. A friend and I once arrived at a very basic bivvy hut lodged high in the mountains, to find the door blocked by avalanche debris. It took an hour to dig a way in, only to find it contained nothing more than a few candle stubs and a box of damp matches. It was late spring, and the floor was covered in ice. A mass of snow had come down the chimney and frozen into a dome in front of the fireplace, and we found it warmer to sit outside on the roof to cook and eat. After we’d gone to bed on mattress-free boards, an avalanche targeted the hut and in the morning we had to dig our way out through the window.
Where possible, huts are now providing smaller family-sized rooms
Matratzenlager (mattress rooms) like this one are common throughout the Alps
Old-style bunk beds in the Totalp Hut in Austria’s Rätikon Alps
Fortunately, we’d planned to be self-sufficient for a couple of weeks of climbing and were able to make the most of the experience. But it is important, when planning a mountain trip – especially out of season – to do your homework first. Will the huts be open and manned? Will there be room? What facilities can be expected? Are meals provided?
Decorative desserts are served by the warden at Berghaus Bäregg above Grindelwald, despite its remoteness
In most huts there will be no choice of menu, but what you get will be both filling and tasty
Guidebooks are usually the best initial source of information on the existence and location of huts, but an increasing number of refuges now have their own websites giving up-to-date details so you can gain an idea of what to expect before finalising your plans. (See Appendix B for a list of alpine huts and their websites.) If, for example, you don’t like the idea of sharing a dormitory with strangers, check out those huts that have smaller bedrooms with two, four or six bunks. Some have fresh bed linen supplied, although the cost of an overnight stay in a small room is likely to be a little higher than for dormitory accommodation, but you may feel that a degree of privacy is worth the extra money.
Even dormitories vary, not only in size, but in the type of sleeping arrangement on offer. The traditional Matratzenlager – or ‘mattress room’ – is a large communal space with a row of anything from 8 to 30 mattresses laid side by side, while other more conventional dorms have two-tiered bunk beds. Pillows and duvets or blankets are provided, but for purposes of hy-giene you must either use your own sheet sleeping bag or rent one on arrival. As there’s no segregation of the sexes, a
‘a certain amount of
