Category Archives: Featured hut

Featured Hut: New Monte Rosa Hut, Swiss Alpine Club

by Sam Demas

This glittering, crystalline structure changes the aesthetic paradigm and technical concept of Alpine lodging.  A technologically sophisticated building, the New Monte Rosa Hut sets a new standard for hut design and is an exemplar of design for self-sufficiency in remote places.   It is located at an altitude of 2,883 meters, above the Gorner glacier and near the the Matterhorn and Dufourspitze, Switzerland’s highest peak.  It is at least 90% self-sufficient in meeting its energy needs and is said to be 65% self-sufficient overall (alas, it cannot  grow its own food!).

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Book Review: New Monte Rosa Hut Swiss Alpine Club

Review by Sam Demas; for pictures of Monte Rosa Hut, see photo gallery

Hut design is a prized architectural specialty in Switzerland, and this book is a prism through which to view this specialty — as well as to learn about the remarkable New Monte Rosa Hut.  This beautifully produced book comprises 6 thoughtful introductory essays providing historical and architectural context for the project, 15 informative technical notes on key aspects of the project, many architectural drawings, and dozens of beautiful photographs.  Published shortly after construction, it is a both a form of public documentation and a celebration of this remarkable design and construction project of ETH-Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.  It was published in conjunction with a 2010 exhibition on the hut.

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Featured Hut: Centennial of AMC’s Carter Notch Hut

In response to several tragic deaths from exposure and subsequent concern for hiker safety, the the AMC started building huts and shelters in 1888 and celebrated the 125th anniversary it’s hut system in 2013.  Carter Notch Hut, built in 1914, celebrated its Centennial last year.

After the first AMC hut, Madison Springs, proved popular with hikers, AMC member Harvey Newton Shepard, who had studied European hut systems, recommended:

….a few additional huts be constructed, with good paths thereto, so that uninteresting walk of three to seven days may be made without the encumbrance of the carrying of blankets or provisions…… this is the kind of public work in which the Club should engage.

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Welcome to hut2hut.info!

h2h is a work in progress, but we’ve finally launched!  The website is a call to community,  information exchange, research, debate, and discussion.  It will be successful to the extent readers join the conversation!

With 21 posts, articles and news items, this first “issue” of HutMag provides a sense of what we are about.  We’ll continue to publish new content monthly for the next few years and see where it leads.  Our other primary section is Operational Profiles.

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