The Mountain Hut Book. Kev Reynolds

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      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 spent in huts and gîtes d’étape (walkers’ hostels) along the way, you come to recognise one another, look out for a familiar face during

      ‘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.