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 in summer with day visitors and trekkers, while skiers flock there in winter, for access is made easy with the aid of one or more téléphériques (cable cars). Few trekkers’ huts have such means of access, but most are approached by decent, well-marked trails and are no more than a few hours’ walk apart. Facilities are usually pretty good too, enabling you to make a tour of a week or two with a backpack containing little more than a change of clothing, a sheet sleeping bag, head torch and travel towel, leaving you to enjoy the trek without being weighed down by non-essentials.
A steadily expanding network of refuges across the alpine range has enabled numerous exciting day walks and multi-day treks to be tackled by walkers of varying abilities and levels of fitness. Practically every district now claims a hut-to-hut tour that explores some of its finest scenery, encouraging newcomers to discover the mountains in all their rich variety. There are classic routes with worldwide fame, like the 10–12-day Tour of Mont Blanc (TMB) and the fortnight-long Walker’s Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt (C–Z), and countless other great treks that may be less well known but are just as rewarding, with often uncrowded huts in the most amazing locations among the Alps of France, Switzerland, Austria, the Italian Dolomites and Slovenia‘s Julian Alps.
Chamanna Coaz at the head of Val Roseg in the Bernina Alps
The Coaz Hut (Chamanna Coaz, (www.coaz.ch/en) in the Bernina Alps is a prime example. Originally built with climbers in mind, it is now regularly visited by walkers based in Pontresina or one of the nearby Engadine villages, and also by trekkers making the 9-day Tour of the Bernina. Standing close to the Roseg glacier at 2610m, some 500m above a glacial lake at the head of Val Roseg, an overnight there is a very special experience and one I’d wanted to make for many years. Despite having visited the hut several times since I first worked in the district back in the late 1960s, it wasn’t until I was walking the Tour of the Bernina in 2014 that I finally had the opportunity to actually sleep there. It was early in the season and the warden was still digging a pathway through the snow when I arrived. But everything was fully operational, and as that summer happened to be the hut’s 50th anniversary, anyone staying who’d been born the same year it was opened was charged at 1964 prices. Alas, I was too old for that. But at least I could claim a discount with my Alpine Club membership card.
Despite there being room for 80, I was one of only eight hikers staying (four from Sweden, two Swiss women who’d previously worked at the hut, and two of us from the UK), so there was plenty of space in the dormitories. We ate our meals together with the lights of Pontresina twinkling in the distance, to the sound of last winter’s snow sliding off the roof.
On some of the more popular multi-day routes, something approaching a family atmosphere builds among trekkers, for after a few nights