The Mountain Hut Book. Kev Reynolds

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      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.