Planning Your Trip

Refilling our water supply at a stand pipe

What To Take

It is extremely important to take all the essential gear that you need for hiking in the mountains. You are in the mountains after all and you will be at high elevations where the weather can change in a flash. Even though you are not camping outdoors in a tent, don’t take your preparation lightly. On occasion, I have gotten lost for a few hours and have also encountered heavy fog, snow storms, and thunder storms that made hiking very uncomfortable and nerve-racking. These are circumstances where you don’t want to be without full rain gear and warm clothing. On the other hand, the mistake that first-timers and even experienced hikers often make is to take too much gear and pay the price in discomfort. Try not to fall into this trap either. I have occasionally taken friends with us hut-to-hut hiking for their first time and they inevitably end up tossing out things on the second or third day. My total pack weight is around 12 pounds without food and water. Add in some lunch supplies and water and you get to around 17 pounds. Every item of clothing I carry is either wool or synthetic. Don’t take anything cotton with you as it holds moisture and takes too long to dry (exactly what you don’t want in a survival situation). Here is what I recommend.

30-40 liter intermal frame pack – 2 lb 14 oz (There are definitely lighter packs out there but it’s important to pay attention to comfort as well as weight. It’s worth it to have a pack with a good hip belt and shoulder straps, for instance, even if it weighs a few extra ounces. The whole point of going lightweight, after all, is to maximize your comfort.)
pack rain cover – 3 oz
heavy duty garbage bag as waterproof pack liner (for added insurance)
pair of hiking sticks – 18 oz
pair of hiking shoes – 30 oz (You need a good sturdy sole but nothing too stiff or beefy. Gore-tex waterproof is nice but not essential. I prefer low-cut.)
two pair mid-weight hiking socks – 5 oz
one pair low-cut casual socks – 1 oz
hiking capris (shorts or pants are fine too) – 9 0z
short sleeve hiking shirt – 4 oz
long sleeve shirt for evenings – 6 oz
pair of pants for evenings – 10 oz
lightweight T-shirt for sleeping – 3 oz
slip-on shoes for evenings – 9 oz
lightweight long underwear top – 5 oz
lightweight long underwear bottoms – 4 oz
down jacket – 10 oz
rain jacket – 10 oz
rain pants – 8 oz
two pair underwear – 2 oz
two bras – 5 oz
sun hat – 2 oz
fleece beanie cap – 1 oz
sun glasses with case (optional) – 3 oz
lightweight Capilene gloves (optional) – 1 oz
closed-cell foam sit-upon – 1 oz (Take an old Thermarest Ridgerest sleeping pad and cut off a 12×20 inch rectangle.)
headlamp – 3 oz
ear plugs
compass – 1 oz
maps – 6 oz (1:25,000 or 1:30,000 is best. Put the map you are using inside a large ziploc bag.)
copies of guide book pages and other trip information (such as itinerary and phone numbers) – 4 oz
reading book or eReader – 7 oz
iPhone and charger – 6 oz (This also serves as my camera.)
silk sleep sheet – 6 oz
two small stuff sacks for organizing small items – 1 oz
pack towel – 4 oz (You are going to think I am crazy but, as a weight saving measure, I actually don’t carry one anymore. Yes, you often need one in the huts. I either drip dry or ask for one for a small fee. Most normal people will want to have one.)
money belt with cash, credit card, etc. – 4 oz
highlighter pen
writing pen
blister kit – 1 oz (Having had a great deal of experience in this area, I recommend carrying two specific products which will serve all your needs. One is Spenco 2nd Skin Adhesive Knit. I use this instead of mole skin because it is thinner and stays on better. Put this on the minute you start to feel a hot spot. The second is a product you can find in Europe called Compeed which looks somewhat like a bandaid and comes in different sizes. Use this to protect a blister once it has formed. It allows you to continue walking with only minimal pain and sticks like super glue. The closest thing I have found in the U.S. is a product by Johnson & Johnson called Band-Aid Advanced Healing Adhesive Bandages. I don’t think they stick quite as well as Compeed.)
small Swiss Army knife with scissors – 1 oz
sun screen – 3 oz
hydration bladder – 6 oz
small water bottle – 1 oz
reading glasses – 1 oz
handful of water purification tablets
tiny roll of duct tape for fixing whatever – 1 oz
first-aid kit – 5 oz (I go very minimalist here but you need to decide what is important to you. I carry a couple of band-aids, a sewing needle (for blisters), electrolyte tablets, and drugs such as ibuprofen and sinus/cold medication.)
toiletries – 12 oz (You can really shave the ounces here by avoiding liquid items. Use a small bar of shampoo instead of liquid shampoo. Carry just a little lotion and tooth paste and buy more in a town when you need it. Other items I take are my personal medication, small bar of soap, tooth brush (no, I don’t cut off part of the handle), dental floss, and deodorant. For the occasional clothes washing I need to do, I use my bar of soap.)

Some days the weather does not cooperate

When To Go

The season for hiking in the Alps is short, basically July 1 through September 10. We’ve pushed it a couple of times on the front end (meaning end of June) and have run into so much snow that we either couldn’t find the trail or couldn’t cross the passes. At the end of the season, the biggest limiting factor is the closing date for huts. This varies but most huts close somewhere between September 5 and 15. This is always disappointing to me as September is one of the finest hiking months for both weather and lack of crowds. But the huts can’t justify staying open for the handful of people who might come in mid-September. Also pay attention to lift closing dates if any are critical to your itinerary. I wouldn’t say that any one month or period has better weather. It’s a game of roulette. But if you want to avoid the most crowded times, stay away from the last week in July and the first two weeks in August.

What Does It Cost

Oh, how I long for the days when the dollar was strong and the exchange rate was favorable for Americans. The weaker dollar these days makes all European travel a bit expensive. That being said, hut-to-hut travel in Europe is pretty darn reasonable. I’ll give you some planning numbers below which assume you are using good but budget-class accommodations and that you’re traveling with at least one other person. Keep in mind that these are ballpark figures only. Prices can vary greatly by country (Switzerland is much more expensive) and by your lodging and restaurant choices. So get out your calculator. An overnight stay in a hut including breakfast and dinner is usually around 60 euros. You get a slight discount at huts run by a country’s alpine club if you are a member of an official alpine club such as the American Alpine Club or Canadian Alpine Club. Lodging and meals in towns (at hotels or B&Bs) are almost always more expensive (I plan on 80 euros per person including breakfast and dinner.) Then you need to add in the cost of lunch supplies, lifts, buses/trains to your starting and ending points, and in-town splurges. This runs, on average, an extra 20 euros a day. So what is the bottom line? I use 120 euros/day as my planning number and then throw in a little extra so as not to run short. I am a self-confessed foodie and like to splurge on a nice meal when it’s available.

How much cash should you take? Everyone has different risk tolerances for how much cash they want to carry on them. I carry most of what I plan to spend on a trip with me in cash from the very beginning. The reason is that almost all huts and many small hotels take cash only. And ATMs are not located around every corner. The slightly larger villages usually have them, though, and you can plan on getting a cash infusion when you pass through.

Rifugio Scotoni – Dolomites Alta Via 1

What’s A Hut Like

A hut in the Alps is like a bunk house with a manager and a small staff of helpers. Or it can be like a fully-equipped inn in the mountains. But all huts with a manager (called a guardian) offer breakfast and dinner and a place to sleep with mattress, pillow, and blankets. You bring your own sleep sheet. Breakfast consists of bread, butter, jam, and a hot beverage of your choice. If you are very lucky, it will also include some sliced meat or cheese, cereal, or yogurt. Dinner usually consists of a starter such as soup, a main course, and a dessert. The French are actually required by law to serve four courses at their refuges. I am a francophile but I find this to be a bit over-controlling. Some huts have no shower and only dormitory-style sleeping accommodations. Some have hot showers, private rooms, wifi, cappuccino machines, and a selection of wine by the bottle. Some are very remote and draw their electricity from solar panels or small hydroelectric generators. Others have road access with full electricity. Regardless of what style of huts you encounter on your route, you are likely to enjoy the camaraderie and atmosphere they offer. They are filled with an international community of hikers of all ages and from many different countries. This is one of the main reasons that hut-to-hut distance hiking has become one of my passions. I love walking into a hut after a long day on the trail and smelling something cooking for dinner, hearing French coming from one corner and German from another, and passing an 80 year old fit, bronzed Italian man on the stairs as I go to find my bed for the night (he probably arrived at the hut 2 hours ahead of me). I love sitting at the dinner table with people of different cultures and languages trying to converse about their day or about food or politics. All of us who are English speakers truly benefit in these situations as English has become the international default language (this does not mean by any means that all Europeans are English speakers). Not all huts have this kind of warm, inviting, community atmosphere, but many do.

Almost all huts offer some food supplies that you can purchase for your picnic lunch (things like candy bars, nuts, and potato chips). Some will fix a take-away lunch for you such as a sandwich, chips, and a piece of fruit. Of course, all of these extras are provided for a fee. I find the Italian huts, in general, to be the best. By this I mean the most luxurious, the warmest, and serving the best food. We hiked one year with a French couple who told us that they knew many French hikers who often headed to Italy for this reason. I also like Austrian huts a great deal. You can count on them to be accommodating, clean, and have comfortable beds and tasty food (with by far the most variety for breakfast). French huts vary all over the place. Some are like little gems in the mountains (these are usually the private huts as opposed to the huts run by the French Alpine Club) and some are institutional and without character. Don’t assume, because of their culinary reputation, that the French serve great food. In the huts, it is often ordinary. I guess this leaves the Swiss in last place, at least in my book. Their huts are really just fine but usually very basic. The Swiss have a proud mountaineering tradition and, for the most part, they don’t believe in developing their pristine mountain areas into luxury vacation destinations.

One final but important point about huts. Reserve ahead. This is important because they sometimes fill up and you want to be assured a place to sleep and eat. It is also the polite thing to do. The hut guardian has to plan how much food to prepare for dinner and he can only do this if everyone has booked in advance.

How Hard Is It

If you are a fit, active person who can walk 5-10 miles comfortably, you can probably do distance hiking in the Alps. You will be much better prepared if you get in several weeks of training on hills carrying a pack right before your trip. Better yet, if you have the time, arrive at your destination early and do several long day hikes with a full pack before you begin your route. Hut-to-hut hiking in the Alps is demanding. Firstly, because you typically have a great deal of elevation gain and loss every day. The Alps are not as high as the Rocky Mountains but they are steeper. My hiking buddies and I have a little mantra that we use to start the day’s walk which is “A thousand up, a thousand down.” This means we’ll be climbing 1000 meters (over 3000 feet) up over a pass and descending 1000 meters back down into a valley, almost every day. This is why you notice so many Alps hikers with hiking sticks (something most Americans are not accustomed to). Secondly, it is hard because you often have long hiking days with many footsteps. You have to reach the hut for that evening since you’re not carrying a tent and sleeping bag, and sometimes the hut is 8 or 9 hours away. But what makes hut-to-hut hiking accessible to so many average but fit walkers, regardless of age, is the fact that you carry a light pack. With a little attention and determination, you can carry a very light pack. The lighter you travel, the less your muscles moan and groan, the more unencumbered you feel, and the more you enjoy each day’s journey.