“ We sat on a terrace that wraps around Dossenhütte. The Swiss alpinist I was talking with casually balanced his stein on the edge of the parapet and went on to describe how last winter he had skied down the face of Rosenlauigletscher. Today, in the summer, that glacier is serrated with crevices as it tumbles off the mountain, and my companion wondered at his own descent.
I couldn't take my eyes off that beer stein. It sat at the edge of a 100-meter plunge into the mist and rocks below. The Swiss have a very casual attitude toward dizzying heights.
While planning my hike, I narrowed my planning to the 153 hüttes of the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC); these most closely resemble the Appalachian Mountain Club's huts in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Each SAC chapter runs its own hüttes, which range from bivouacs to self-full service.
Huts are micro communities with norms that help them operate, and I didn't know the Swiss customs. So I approached Gelmerhütte with a bit of uncertainty. In the entranceway was the first obvious hint. One wall was covered with a boot rack, and a second wall was covered with shelves full of foam clogs called Crocs. No boots inside the hut.
I found the "hüttenwarte," the hut warden, and she showed me around, and pointed out my place at one of the communal tables and my place on the sleeping platform, then told me the times for supper and breakfast. The hut itself was build of stone and perched on top of a cliff face, well above the treeline. Below us a mountain stream launched itself over a cliff and nearly disappeared as the wind blew it into a mist. ...”
