The Mountain Hut Book

The

Mountain Hut

Book

by Kev Reynolds

© Kev Reynolds 2018

First edition 2018

ISBN: 978 1 85284 928 3

Printed in China on behalf of Latitude Press Ltd

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All photographs are by the author unless otherwise stated.

Route mapping by Lovell Johns www.lovelljohns.com

Contains OpenStreetMap.org data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA.

NASA relief data courtesy of ESRI

Acknowledgements

My thanks as ever to Jonathan Williams at Cicerone for his initial enthusiasm to take this book on, and my apologies for keeping him guessing as to its content until the very last moment. I am grateful, too, to all the Cicerone team who put it together, especially Pat Dunn, my editor, and designer Clare Crooke. Not only are they highly skilled at what they do, but they are such lovely people to work with, and I trust they know how much I value their special friendship. Thank you, each one. My good friend Gillian Price, whose personal experience of the Dolomites is much greater than mine, generously provided a description of one of her favourite huts as well as the spectacular Alta Via 2 trek across those bewitching mountains, and gave me access to some of her splendid photographs with which to illustrate them. Thanks, Gillian, I’m in your debt! I’m also grateful to Anaïs Bobst at Switzerland Tourism for the image of the new Monte Rosa Hut. And to my wife Min and our daughters, and all those with whom I’ve shared unforgettable hutting experiences in various parts of the world – my love and thanks for adding to life’s riches.

Mountain safety

Every mountain walk has its dangers, and those described in this guidebook are no exception. All who walk or climb in the mountains should recognise this and take responsibility for themselves and their companions along the way. The author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information contained in this guide was correct when it went to press, but, except for any liability that cannot be excluded by law, they cannot accept responsibility for any loss, injury or inconvenience sustained by any person using this book.

To call out the Mountain Rescue, ring 999 (in the UK) or the international emergency number 112: this will connect you via any available network. Once connected to the emergency operator, ask for the police.

Dedication

To all the hut guardians, known and unknown, whose personality and efforts add so much to the mountain experience

Front cover: The Mönch and Jungfrau, viewed from Schynige Platte at the start of the Tour of the Jungfrau Region

Opposite page: Secluded among some of the finest of all Swiss mountains, Cabane d’Arpitettaz was built in 1953 by seven Zinal guides

Contents

Overview map

Map key

Introduction

1 Rooms with a view

Huts for all

Huts for trekkers

Huts for climbers

Huts for watching wildlife

Huts for walkers

Ten of the best-for huts

When is a hut not a hut?

2 Hut life

House rules

A summary of hut conventions

Sleeping and eating

The hut guardian

Paying for the privilege

Not huts – Berghotels and gîtes d’étape

3 Top ten huts

Cabane d’Arpitettaz

Refuge des Bans

Refuge de Bellachat

Rifugio Bolzano/Schlernhaus

Burg Hut

Cabane des Dix

Refuge Entre Deux Eaux

Grutten Hut

Rifugio Longoni

Totalp Hut

4 Hut to hut

Tour of the Vanoise

Rätikon Höhenweg

Tour of the Jungfrau Region

Stubai High Level Route

Tour of the Bernina

Tour of Mont Blanc

Tour of Val de Bagnes

Tour of the Oisans: GR54

Alta Via 2

Tour of the Wilder Kaiser

5 Hovels to hotels

Bivouacs, boulders and caves

Loathsome dens

The age of the mountain hut

The overcrowded Alps

Between the wars

The future has arrived

Alpine Clubs and their huts

6 Beyond the Alps – bothies, huts and lodges

Andes

Appalachians

Atlas Mountains

Canadian Rockies

Caucasus

Corsica

Himalaya

Picos de Europa

Pyrenees

Southern Alps

Tatras

Appendix A: Useful contacts

Appendix B: Directory of alpine huts

Appendix C: Glossary for alpine trekkers

Appendix D: Further reading

The mountain hut – an outlook on another world

From the Col de la Chavière there are spectacular views north towards the Grande Casse and Mont Blanc on a clear day (Photo: Jonathan Williams)

Seen from Cabane de Panossière, the Grand Combin rises above the Corbassière glacier

The solid-looking Brèche de Roland refuge in the Cirque de Gavarnie (French Pyrenees)

Introduction

A mountain hut is a purpose-built refuge situated at some strategically high place in the mountains so that one or more peaks are readily accessible from it. It may vary in size from a simple bivouac shelter to something resembling a small hotel in size and facilities.

This quote, taken from Walt Unsworth’s Encyclopaedia of Mountaineering (1992), describes the original use for which huts were built, but it tells only part of the story. With the remarkable increase in outdoor activity since it was written, huts have had to evolve, and today there must be as many walkers and trekkers as there are climbers who choose to stay in them.

Over several decades of activity I’ve visited or stayed in hundreds of mountain huts (otherwise known as a cabane, capanna or chamanna, dom and koca, Hütte, refuge or rifugio), not just in the Alps, but also in the Pyrenees, Morocco, Russia and the high Himalaya, where they are known by other names, and I’ve come to appreciate the sheer variety and sometimes quirky nature of such dwellings lodged in a remote corner of the mountains far from the familiar everyday world. Here, it’s possible to be alone, if I wish, or be drawn into the babble of camaraderie to share a love of wild places with other like-minded individuals.

If you’re already familiar with the hut system, you’ll know that they are more than just shelters in which to pass the night – unless that’s all you want of them, that is. They can be meeting places for climbers seeking a partner to tackle a particular route. They can be staging posts for trekkers on a multi-day tour. Or they can be somewhere to visit on a day’s hike there-and-back from a valley base; somewhere to stop for lunch, perhaps, to sit outside in the sunshine, enjoy the view, and then move on.

During my years of guiding mountain holidays in the Alps and elsewhere, I found that clients always seemed to enjoy best the days when we visited huts, although many would openly admit to a lack of ‘courage’ to stay in one unless they had a friend to show them how to go about it.

Aiguille de la Tsa and the Bertol-Veisivi wall, seen from Cabane des Aiguilles Rouges

Courage seems a strange word to use in relation to something as simple as spending a night in a mountain hut, especially coming from folk who would think nothing of checking in at a three- or four-star resort hotel. But to them, huts were foreign, exotic dwellings reserved for those with experience and who were therefore assumed to hold the key to some secret world that exists among high mountains. There was an unspoken mystique about huts, secrets that only those ‘in the know’ were privy to. Huts were not for ‘ordinary’ mountain walkers.

Of course, that’s nonsense!

Mountain huts are for everyone. Well, that’s not strictly true, I’ll admit, for some are literally out of reach, sited like some lofty eyrie inaccessible to most mountain walkers. Take, for example, the old Tour Rouge refuge in the Mont Banc massif, whose approach route was described by Hermann Buhl in Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage as taking him up ‘a vertical, smooth crack’, while the hut itself was little more than ‘a prehistoric wooden shelter…consisting of three boarded walls, a corrugated iron roof and a plank floor.’

Not many ‘ordinary’ mountain walkers would consider tackling that route. Nor would they be likely to hanker after spending a night in such a dwelling, which is just as well, perhaps, for that quote dates from the 1950s, and the Tour Rouge refuge no longer exists.

But countless other huts do exist, and in places accessible to practically anyone who’s physically active and prepared to put a bit of effort into reaching them – huts in the most remarkable places, huts with stars for neighbours, with views that remain with you for ever.

This book tells you a bit about them, shows you what and where they are, and how they have evolved from little more than the most primitive of shelters. For the uninitiated, it explains who owns them, how to use them and what facilities to expect. It shows how the hutting experience is not confined to Europe, but has spread worldwide. And it also describes a few favourite huts and a selection of hut-to-hut routes to widen your alpine horizons.

In unravelling some of the mystery, I trust this book illustrates the way in which mountain huts can be truly sociable places in which to spend a night or two in the most magical of locations, to enjoy wild nature at its very best, with spectacular views and a peace unknown in the valleys.

Why not try one, next time you’re in the Alps?

1 Rooms with a view

Amid the rude elements of nature, rock, snow and ice, the hut is a life-giving oasis.

(Herbert Maeder, The Mountains of Switzerland)

All morning the trail had gained and lost so much height that I seemed to be getting nowhere in a hurry, when at the foot of yet another steep descent the way divided, offering an escape route into the valley. Having been on the go for 5 hours and with at least another 2½ hours ahead of me (if the guardian at last night’s hut at the head of Val de Bagnes was to be believed), I was almost tempted to take it – especially as close study of the map showed there were several kilometres still to cover, and more than 700m to climb in order to gain the pass whose crossing was to be the crux of the route. I felt unaccountably old and out of touch. My knees hurt and I was running short of puff. Yet 10 minutes’ rest, an over-ripe banana and half a bar of chocolate put a bit of fuel in my engine, and I set off again with optimism and energy restored.

The spectacle of alpenglow on the Combin massif is one of the rewards for a night spent at the Panossière hut

Two hours later I kicked my way up a snowfield, crossed two false tops and emerged at last on the sun-dazzling crest of the Col des Otanes. The view directly ahead revealed a wonderland of ice and snow, with Combin de Corbassière rising above its glaciers, the great dome of the Grand Combin to the south, and the Dents du Midi, around which I’d trekked only a few days before, juggling wispy clouds to the north. It was a view that would have taken my breath away, if I’d had any to spare, and it made all the effort to get there worthwhile.

In no hurry now, I sat on my rucksack in the snow to savour the moment, squinting in the sunlight and soaking in the view before descending at snail’s pace, content with the knowledge that before long I’d be able to relax with a cold beer in hand, the promise of a refreshing shower, a bed for the night, a three-course meal, and maybe a carafe of red wine to celebrate – not in some fancy resort hotel, but in a mountain hut set beside a glacier.

A couple of hundred metres below the col, the hut was even better than I’d hoped. Sturdy, spacious and welcoming, Cabane de Panossière stands on the right-hand lateral moraine of the Corbassière glacier in a world of its own. It has no neighbours, other than the rock, snow and ice of the mountains that drew me and the other visitors to it, and in the warmth of that bright summer’s day it had everything I could possibly want or need.

Given a mattress in a room overlooking the glacier, and after satisfying a long day’s mountain thirst with more overpriced cans of beer than were good for me, at 7pm that evening, along with 20 or so other climbers and walkers, I was working my way through a large plate of tender meat and spaghetti when suddenly all conversation ceased. In its place came the clatter of cutlery on china as everyone grabbed their cameras and rushed outside.

There at the head of a vast glacial highway, the Grand Combin was turning scarlet before our very eyes, its summit snows reflecting the dying sun in a riot of alpenglow, while a 1200m cascade of ice disappeared into a rising cauldron of shadow. It was one of those sights that none of us who saw it will ever forget, yet it was just one of many that the hut provided at no extra cost.

‘the Grand Combin was turning scarlet before our very eyes’

Night fell not long after, leaving each one of us marooned in a world of our own – a world centred on a solitary building astride a wall of moraine among alpine giants. Peace settled; there were no alien sounds, just the occasional clunk and slither of a rock falling onto ice. It was no more threatening than the pulse beat of mountains at rest.

At 2am I slid off my bunk, tiptoed to the window and counted the stars, some of which settled on creamy summits more than 1500m above me. In the darkness, the great peaks watched over Cabane de Panossière and its guests, all of whom – except for me – were sleeping, unaware of the beauty of the scene beyond the window.

As for me, there was nowhere else I’d rather be, for my simple dormitory was the ultimate room with a view.

Huts for all

Like thousands of others scattered across the alpine chain, the Panossière Hut (www.cabane-fxb-panossiere.ch/en) provides overnight accommodation for walkers, trekkers, climbers and ski mountaineers, and, in common with the vast majority, is located amid magnificent scenery. This one, at 2645m in the Pennine Alps of canton Valais in Switzerland, belongs to the Bourgeoisie de Bagnes, while its predecessor, destroyed by avalanche in 1988, was owned by the Swiss Alpine Club (Schweizer Alpen-Club, SAC). It can sleep 100 in its dormitories, and is manned by a guardian (or warden) during the spring ski-touring season and for about three months in the summer, when meals, drinks and snacks are available.

That, in a nutshell, sums up a modern mountain hut. It’s a bit like a youth hostel, offering simple, reasonably priced accommodation and meals in a magical setting for visitors taking part in mountain activities. A ‘hut’ in the conventional sense it is not. There is no resemblance to a garden shed, as the word might suggest, although one of its predecessors, a simple wooden cabin built nearby in 1893, may well have been, for there were very few luxuries available in those far-off days.

Trekking group on the trail leading to the Schesaplana Hut

A few of those early mountain refuges that gave little more than rudimentary shelter still exist today, but the majority have evolved, thank goodness, into much more comfortable buildings (the most recent claiming eco-friendly credentials, with solar generators and innovative means of water purification) that provide overnight lodging with all, or most, mod cons, three- or four-course meals and an experience to remember. Every year, thousands of mountain enthusiasts from all over the world have reason to be thankful for their existence, for they’re much more than a simple home-from-home in what can sometimes be a wild and uncompromising environment. Up there, you can make contact with others who share your interests, build friendships, exchange stories and gather valuable up-to-date information about route conditions and weather forecasts from the guardians, a number of whom are also experienced mountain guides. Up there, you’re in another world, divorced from everyday concerns. Up there, mountain huts become a means of escape from one reality to another, a halfway house in which to relax during adventures ‘out there’.

OK, maybe I’m nudging towards a romantic view, for it must be admitted there are those who think less favourably of the hutting experience than I. In his introduction to 100 Hikes in the Alps, American author Harvey Edwards sets out his objections. ‘They are wonderful protection in a storm,’ he says, ‘but I’ve yet to catch up on all the nights’ sleep I’ve lost. Someone is always snoring, sneezing, singing, smoking, or getting up at 1:00am to start a climb. In season, the huts are overcrowded and often unbearable. Still, a trip to the Alps isn’t worth a schnitzel if you haven’t tried a hut at least once.’ He then goes on to recommend using a tent.

Now I like wild camping too, and bivvying alone in remote places lost above the clouds. But there’s something very special about huts, their welcome shelter and the camaraderie they inspire – especially in the Stube (common room/dining 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