Media Review: Alpine Refuges

Author Aaron Rolph skiing steeps around Chamonix, France, after photographing Alpine Refuges. Photo: Nathan Hughes

During a college semester abroad in Italy, I traveled from Ferrara to the Ortler Alps for my first ever hut-to-hut ski traverse. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of accommodations—I was thrilled just to hear we wouldn’t have to carry our own food. But by the time we reached Rifiguio Pizzini on day one, the entire experience had already exceeded every expectation I had for a hut trip and then some. Unlike the yurts and huts I’d seen in Washington and Colorado, we skinned up to what looked like a high alpine hotel, perched in a massive glacial cirque in the shadow of the Gran Zebrù and Mount Cevedale. Five-course meals, cozy bunk rooms (which slept 100), indoor plumbing—for the next seven days we indulged in the kind of backcountry hospitality I didn’t even know was on the table for such a trip. 

From there, I made it my mission to spend as much time as possible in huts across Europe. On trips to France and Austria I discovered that these full-service huts were as commonplace in the Alps as gas stations, with self-service winter rooms and bare-bones refuges peppered around the hillsides in between. I could go on about them indefinitely, but instead I’ll say that no one has captured their essence quite like Aaron Rolph. The skier and photographer recently published Alpine Refuges: The Architecture and Culture of Mountain Shelters, a coffee table book chronicling mountain shelters all over the world. 

The Refuge des Grands Mulets (10,009 ft) in Chamonix, France is perched among cascading glaciers underneath the towering Mont Blanc. 

Staying in a mountain hut—whether it’s a luxurious Italian rifugio serving up the best homemade gnocchi known to humankind or a primitive North American yurt where you boil your own drinking water—is one of skiing’s greatest pleasures. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of wrapping up a magical day in the mountains only to realize that you don’t have to leave just yet. There’s something so special about having 24-hour access to the places we often spend so much of our time and energy trying to get to. And luxurious features, like home-cooked feasts and beer on tap, are the cherry on top. 

With 30 unique mountain huts featured in Alpine Refuges, Rolph’s collection captures the full gamut of high mountain accommodations. His work encapsulates some of the world’s most iconic huts, like the Grand Mulets above Chamonix, where skiers sleep before summiting Mont Blanc, as well as quieter bivouacs like the Bivacco Gervasutti outside Courmayeur, which looks like a metal canister with panoramic windows tacked to a cliffside. From full-service huts like those I delighted in during my trip to Italy to more diminutive yet equally scenic shelters in unsuspecting places, Alpine Refuges serves as much inspiration for a ski trip as it does structural engineering. 

The Bivouac du Dolent (8,750 ft) in Valais, Switzerland, a 12-person metal bivouac guarding the remote Swiss-Italian-French border beneath the imposing summit of Mont Dolent.

Cabane des Vignettes (10,357 ft) in Arolla, Switzerland. Perched just below Pigne d'Arolla (12,424 ft), the highest point on the Haute Route, this spectacular refuge is full of warm character and boasts amazing views. 

The sweet reward of sleeping in a refuge: first tracks in the morning. Three skiers indulge on the Glacier des Périades in Chamonix, France.

Each featured refuge includes a smattering of shots, a short history of the hut, and logistical details including location, altitude, access, seasonality and sleeping capacity. Alpine Refuges primarily features huts across continental Europe, home to the indisputable mountain refuge experts of the world, but there’s some representation from Canada (the Jim Haberl Hut) and New Zealand (the Sefton Bivouac).

Lovers of architecture will marvel at the sheer complexity (and boldness) of these craftily built mountain dwellings. If there was ever a book to inspire you to take a ski trip to a remote, far-flung corner of a mountain range, it would be Alpine Refuges. It’s been living on my coffee table for a few months and has sparked countless conversations as folks swing by and flip through it. Now if only there were a book like this for all the huts in the United States and Canada. Our huts may be different, but the love for sleeping high in the mountains is universal. 

Alpine Refuges is a stunning hardcover book that will live on the coffee table for years to come. Photo: Lily Krass Ritter

It's hard to open a single page of this book without dreaming of sleeping high in the mountains. Photo: Lily Krass Ritter