room) after a hard day in the hills, or (as Harvey Edwards implies) when a storm explodes outside. Any old port in a storm, you might think. Well, yes, but that’s only a part of it. Having had a role to play in the history of mountaineering, they’ve since become an important, you might say an essential, part of the whole alpine experience – and when I say alpine, I don’t just mean the European Alps (although that’s the focus of this book), but any high mountain region where simple lodgings have been provided for those of us who are active in the great ‘out there’ and who, like me, look forward to spending a few nights of a holiday resting somewhere up there between heaven and earth. It’s true that your sleep might be disturbed for a spell by someone snoring, but I reckon that’s a small price to pay for all the rewards on offer. And you can always use earplugs.
I’m with Chris Bonington when he says (in Mountaineer): ‘There is an anticipatory excitement in a crowded hut, in its babel of different languages, chance encounters with old acquaintances swilling wine and coffee, the packed communal bunks and the intensity of the early morning start.’
So where are these huts? Well, they can be found in just about every district of the 1200km alpine chain, stretching from the Maritime Alps above Nice, through France, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany and Austria, to the lovely Julian and Karavanke mountains of Slovenia, and there are now so many of them that, given sufficient time, energy and ready cash, it would be possible to trek from one end of the range to the other and stay in a different hut each night. Some are grouped just an hour or so apart (there are in excess of two dozen in the Mont Blanc massif alone, a dozen on the flanks of Triglav in the Julian Alps, and at least eight on or around the base of the Sassolungo massif in the Dolomites), while others may be spaced 5 or 6 hours – or almost a day’s hike – from one another, so you can remain at high altitude for a week or more without the need to descend to a valley to find a bed for the night.
After a hard day on the hill, the Stube invokes a warm sense of camaraderie as strangers who share a common enthusiasm become new-found friends
Each one will be unique – not unique in the type of sleeping accommodation on offer, since they all have some form of communal, mixed-sex dormitory, while gourmet meals with beer or wine will be served as if in a valley hotel.
There are huts clinging to summits, huts wedged among the clefts of narrow mountain passes, huts projecting from rocky spurs secured with cables. There are huts built on moraine walls, huts in gentle meadows. Long ago there was one in the Maritime Alps that looked like a railway carriage that had been airlifted into the mountains, and there’s at least one (the Rinder Hut high above
‘There are huts clinging to summits, huts wedged among the clefts of narrow mountain passes, huts projecting from rocky spurs’
many also have smaller two- and four-bedded rooms for greater privacy, but unique in respect of location, architectural style and ambience. Since no two huts are the same, a multi-day journey across the mountains could result in one night being spent in a converted dairy farm with 20 mattresses laid out in what used to be the milking parlour, and the next in a tiny unmanned metal cabin of a bivouac shelter anchored to a shelf of rock at 3000m with just four bunk beds, a first-aid box and a million-dollar view, while another day’s hike might bring you to something better described as an almost luxurious mountain inn with room for 200 guests, decent bathroom facilities, and a cosy dining room in which Leukerbad in Switzerland) that occupies the basement of a cable car station. When I stayed there I had the dormitory and washroom to myself, but at mealtimes was generously looked after by the Portuguese couple who’d signed up to run the cableway restaurant for the summer. They fed me as though I’d not eaten for a month, and sat me in what seemed like a great glass-domed conservatory that became a first-class observatory when darkness fell. Then they left me to enjoy the night sky and a view of snow-topped mountains stretching into the distance.
I love that diversity, the sheer variety of hut buildings and the surprise you get when you first catch sight of one you’ve never been to before but which is to be your home for the night. It may be a distant sighting, the flash of sunlight on a window catching your attention; or a flag on a pole beckoning from the far side of a ridge, making a useful guide in a bewildering landscape. Anticipation spurs you on. Then you top a rise, turn a corner – or the mist lifts for a moment – and there it is, journey’s end at last! Arrival at the hut invariably comes with a sense of relief, for it’s a guarantee of shelter, somewhere to relax, freshen up, slake your thirst and settle the nagging hunger that comes from a long day’s effort.
Refuge du Plan Sec is a welcome stop on the Tour of the Vanoise (Photo: Jonathan Williams)
The hut at the end of the rainbow
Cabane du Mont-Fort is one of my favourite huts. Perched high in the mountains at the western end of Switzerland’s Pennine Alps, it commands one of the great alpine views, with Mont Blanc hovering far off to mastermind some of the finest sunsets you could wish to gaze on, while Daniel, the guardian who’s run txhe place since 1983, is a cheerful host who treats all-comers as friends. It’s always good to be there, and each of my visits has been memorable; only once was it memorable for the wrong reason…
It had been a long and demanding climb of more than 1600m out of the valley, and in the late afternoon I was growing weary when at last the path eased round the steeply sloping hillside to reveal the hut above me. But the relief that I’d always experienced when I caught sight of the familiar building with its red-striped shutters turned this time to despair.
Not more than 10 minutes’ walk away, the hut looked as welcoming as ever, but the grassy slope up which my path climbed towards it was now being sprayed with liquid manure. I could smell it long before I actually saw it – the discharge from a long anaconda-like pipe that snaked across the slope and disappeared round another corner. September sunlight picked out rainbows in the pungent spray of khaki liquid that flicked in a casual arc from left to right, right to left, and back again, like some great metronome, ticking all the while as it washed across the hillside and covered the path – my path, and the only route to the hut.
I peered in horror at the trail ahead that was now stained with the yellow-brown liquid, and searched in vain for a way to avoid it. There was nothing obvious, so in desperation I looked for the farmer. He was nowhere to be seen, so I scanned the hillside for a dry, spray-free route to the hut, but the only one was too steep for me to contemplate and I had no appetite for that. It had taken almost 7 hours to get this far, and I was worn out.
What to do? I paced back and forth, trying to think of an alternative. How long, I wondered, would it take to get across the danger zone? Nervously I timed the arcing spray’s journey from one side to the other, and doubted my ability to sprint that distance wearing a rucksack and big boots. But unless I waited until the source of the spray dried up, there was only one thing to do. I’d just have to gamble on having enough energy to spare, take a deep breath and go for it.
Counting the number of spray-free seconds available, I waited for the wash to pass over, then dashed up the soggy path at an Olympic pace. It was longer and steeper than I’d feared. I was slower than I’d hoped, and much too soon a shadow crossed my path and I sensed the spray’s return. Relief was not more than a pace or two away, when what I’d feared came true. I slipped…
Fortunately, Cabane du Mont-Fort has decent showers, although most people take their clothes off first when using them.
Huts for trekkers
Manned all year round, Cabane du Mont-Fort (www.cabanemontfort.ch) is immensely popular
