‘long-lasting friendships have been created from a night shared in a mountain hut’
the day, and in the evening swap stories around the dining room table. That sociability can be one of the most rewarding aspects of the hutting and trekking experience, and a number of long-lasting friendships have been created from a night shared in a mountain hut.
Take Rifugio Bonatti (www.rifugiobonatti.it) on the Tour of Mont Blanc. Named after the great Italian mountaineer Walter Bonatti, it stands on a sloping pasture on the south side of the Italian Val Ferret, with a direct view of Mont Blanc in the west and the Grandes Jorasses almost within spitting distance across the valley. Built in 1998 and privately owned, it can sleep 85 in dormitories and family-sized rooms decorated with Bonatti’s photographs, and is known for the excellent facilities that make it one of the most popular huts on the tour. What’s more, one of the best routes of approach (via the Mont de la Saxe option) is downhill – something of a rarity in the Alps.
The dining room is light and spacious, with big windows that exploit a wonderful panoramic view taking in much that you’ll have gazed on during your hike to get there. A few years ago, my wife Min and I spent a night at the rifugio, as we often do, when checking the route and accommodation facilities for a new edition of my Tour of Mont Blanc guidebook. When the guardian sat us down for dinner that evening, we found ourselves at a table with trekkers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, South Africa and the UK, most of whom we’d been leap-frogging along the trail over the previous 5–6 days, egging each other on with cheerful comments. Now I noticed that several of them had copies of my book held open, and were discussing both the day’s route and my descriptions of it. They had no idea that the author, who preferred to remain anonymous, was sitting among them, but we enjoyed the light-hearted banter that crossed international boundaries, and shared a common experience not only of the route, but of our communal home for the night. Years later, we still have regular contact with one of those trekkers from the States, exchanging trail tales via letter and email, after he’d discovered my name by accident a few days after we’d left Bonatti.
Overlooking a tiny lake, the shingle-walled Bremer Hut belongs to the Bremen Section of the German Alpine Club
On another occasion we were working our way round Austria‘s lovely Stubai Alps when we spent a night at the Bremer Hut (www.bremerhuette.at). Midway through our meal, the hut warden relayed a message he’d just received by telephone from Wales, to say that one of our fellow trekkers had that very day become a grandfather for the first time. A bottle of schnapps appeared at the table, and we all drank a toast to ‘granddad’! After that it was party time.
What to pack for hutting
I once led a two-centre walking holiday in the Alps, staying in hotels in each centre, but linking them with a short hut-to-hut trek. On every walk, one of the clients carried a huge backpack as though he was on a three-month Himalayan expedition. Nine-tenths of his load was included just in case. And nine-tenths of his load returned home with him unused. On a fortnight’s trek in the Alps, staying in manned huts overnight, anything more than essentials will be unnecessary overload. A small, lightweight pack leaves the trekker free to enjoy the experience without stress or strain.
Manned huts
Here’s a suggestion of what to take when using manned huts in summer:
trekking poles
lightweight waterproof jacket and overtrousers
fleece jacket/sweater
complete change of clothes
sheet sleeping bag
head torch
lightweight towel
minimum toiletries
sunscreen
water bottle
map and compass
first-aid kit
mobile phone
Unmanned huts
In more remote districts, where huts may not be manned, all the above will be needed, plus:
sleeping bag
camping stove, fuel and lighter
spork (all-in-one knife, fork and spoon)
mug
food
candles
toilet paper
A number of unmanned alpine huts have cooking facilities, crockery and cutlery – but by no means all of them. Expect nothing but shelter and a few bunk beds in remote bivvy huts. If you plan to use unmanned huts in winter, you’re in a different ball game.
Huts for climbers
Huts used almost exclusively by climbers are often more spartan and less comfortable than those on major trekking routes, and some of their approaches can be long, extremely steep and sometimes hazardous. Burdened with rucksacks full of equipment, it’s no wonder that climbers often consider getting to their chosen overnight base as a necessary grind to be suffered rather than enjoyed.
This is particularly true of older huts erected for the alpine pioneers, especially some of those placed in remote and seemingly inaccessible locations. For example, in 1884, in a lofty position on the graceful and isolated Monte Disgrazia in the Bregaglia Alps, Italian cartographers erected a small hut, Capanna Maria, which they presented to the Italian Alpine Club (Club Alpino Italiano, CAI). Two years later, it was visited by the Engadine guide Christian Klucker, who described it in his autobiography Adventures of an Alpine Guide as ‘a simple wooden shed measuring about ten feet in length, and a little more than six feet in width. A small bench, capable of seating four persons, had been fixed at the side towards the mountain. The inventory consisted of: 4 blankets, 1 small spirit-cooker with saucepan, 4 cups, and a few soup-spoons.’ Of the four blankets, two were dry and fit for use, while the others were frozen to the bench. Speculating how long it would last, he was not surprised to find that by 1888 wind and storm had reduced the hut to ruins.
That was an extreme case, but access was the key. Huts built in the valleys or on lower slopes that were accessible to walkers and mountaineers of modest ambition were understandably of a much higher standard than those lodged in more challenging locations. Up there, far from roads or tracks, until comparatively recently, huts provided by the Alpine Clubs were still little more than basic lodgings, patronised by men and women with cracked and blistered skin who carried ropes, slept on communal mattresses, and rose long before dawn.
One of those women was Dorothy Pilley, who came to the Mont Blanc range in 1920 and had her first experience of a real mountain hut when she arrived at the Couvercle (https://refugeducouvercle.jimdo.com), which she found to be crowded in every corner. ‘I had never seen so many tramp-like figures of all nationalities – ragged, dirty and unshaven – as were lolling about the platform, smoking and gossiping, when we trudged up the wooden steps towards them.’
Describing what she found there in her classic memoir, Climbing Days, she wrote: ‘Through the crowd I penetrated into the dark interior of what was evidently an eating- and sleeping-room in one…A partition split off a space at one end the size of a small bathroom. This was the hut gardien’s sanctum, but so great was the crowd that, for a consideration, he had turned it over to the only two other women there, and suggested that I should arrange with them to share it…Seeing that the men were sleeping that night on their sides on the floor of the main room, and even some had to sleep outside in great cold, I thought myself very lucky.’
Despite this unpromising