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With the beginning of the summer season, the 231 alpine huts of the Austrian Alpine Club open their doors to the gastronomy again. After a winter with little snow, the innkeepers are looking forward to summer with confidence. The booking situation is already pleasing. At the same time, the hut keepers of the Alpine Club urgently advise you to think about reserving a place to sleep in good time. There is only occasionally a shortage of staff in the Alpine accommodation establishments, and one of the growing challenges is the water supply in particular.
Every year, the 231 huts of the Alpine Club with their more than 10.000 beds are visited by around one million hiking enthusiasts. After the winter with little snow and a limited range of tours, a promising but also challenging summer season is now ahead. "We would like to say a special thank you to our hut keepers and the hut-owning sections. The scarcity of water in particular is a real problem at higher altitudes and we are impressed by what is achieved here every day," estimates Alpine Club President Andreas Ermacora.
Shower or cat wash?
At least since the extremely dry summer of 2022, the problems with the water supply in some Alpine Club huts have been increasing. The Austrian Alpine Association expects this to happen again in the coming summer. “As a guest at the hut, you should always be aware that it is essential to use water sparingly. Just a short shower of three minutes uses at least 30 to 40 liters of drinking water, which the hut keepers urgently need for other purposes,” calculates Doris Hallama, Vice President of the Alpine Club and an expert on huts.
The interplay between the lack of snow, the retreat of the glaciers and the decrease in meltwater and the general drought put many a hut operation to the test. Fortunately, none of the huts in the Austrian Alpine Club had to be closed due to water shortages last summer, but there were restrictions on having the precious commodity sufficiently available for the most necessary activities.
The water shortage at the shelters has far-reaching consequences, but there are ways to adapt to the situation. However, this also means increasing investment costs, for example when toilets have to be converted to low-water or waterless systems or the wastewater treatment plants have to be adapted. In addition, there are sometimes bottlenecks in the energy supply, since the small hydroelectric power plants of the Alpine Club huts produce too little electricity when there is a water shortage. Careful use of all resources is therefore more important than ever, both on the part of the guests and the innkeepers.
All-round geniuses: hut staff
“Four sections are currently looking for new hut tenants. There is no serious shortage of staff in this area. Nevertheless, it is becoming apparent that many people imagine the work in the hut to be a little different than it actually is," says Georg Unterberger, head of the huts and trails department at the Alpine Club. In addition to the basic gastronomic requirements, the entire hut management is part of everyday life. In remote refuges, a restaurateur quickly becomes an all-rounder with a wide range of activities - from technicians or fire protection experts to first aiders or cooks. In order to be well prepared, the Alpine Association offers extensive training courses for the hut keepers, which are also used for the exchange between the keepers and are very well received. For this summer, the search for employees was unproblematic. The currently vacant positions are advertised on the Alpenverein's hut job website.
Attention, sleeping place reservation!
“Especially on weekends, the Alpine Club huts are often fully booked. That's why we still recommend all guests to reserve a place to sleep in good time before staying overnight in the hut," advises Georg Unterberger.
This works particularly conveniently online: more than 400 huts in the Alps already use the online reservation system of the Alpine Club huts, around 200 of them in Austria and South Tyrol. An immense simplification of everyday life in the hut - it is particularly important, for the sake of the hut keepers, to keep the reservation reliably.
For a year now, the digital bed check has also been making it easier for mountain enthusiasts to plan tours. With it, multi-day tours or long-distance hikes across several huts can be planned with just a few clicks and the respective availability can be called up. Many of the well-known long-distance hiking trails are already integrated with all the huts on the route. The best conditions for a successful summer in the mountains!
