UKH

Hi Guys
Planning to attempt the chamonix to zermatt ski tour at Easter and was wondering if anyone had booked huts in advance but where delayed a day or 2 whilst on the tour due to weather , transfer delay etc . I realise this will have a knock on affect to the remainder of the hut bookings and could work out very expensive if you loose money paid when booking . I've climbed in the swiss alps for the last 6 years and used huts but always booked them the morning before , never paid up front and always been lucky reserving a bed . The tour huts will probably be very busy . Will we have to pay up front for reserving a bed ? What happens if we get delayed and have already paid the fee ? Any advice or experiences will be much appreciated .
Thanks

In reply to Lord Font:
Hi, you should book the huts for your planned itinerary now !
It is not normal to have to pay in advance but the critical thing is to phone at the earliest opportunity if you can not get there e.g. poor weather. Many will find themselves in the same situation and the huts try to manage this when possible.
Some can now be booked online e.g. the Dix http://www.alpsonline.org/reservation/calendar?hut_id=10&lang=en . Its in english. They all have a website.
Finally i would add that Easter will often be very busy....... Have a good trip

In reply to Lord Font:

I'd second that about booking. I did the Haute Route about 10 years ago and it wasn't over Easter and the huts were packed. We didn't have to pay for anything in advanced and the wardens are very good at dealing with delays, bad weather etc - but expect to be fairly unpopular if you fail to tell them!

In reply to Lord Font:
Hi. Did the tour 6 years ago and booked all the huts in an advance. We had to detour half way through due to weather which meant all our bookings were one day out and we missed one hut in its entirety . We didn't have to pay anything in advance and the guardians were without exception accommodating with our late arrivals.

In reply to Kimberley:

Thanks for the advise guys , will get my backside into grear very soon

In reply to Lord Font:
Two years ago. They all still took cash only and the Swiss huts expect Swiss Francs. If this is still the case,get the SF before you get to Chamonix as it's expensive/impossible to find the cash currency as banks don't stock it.

Prepare yourself for ram packed huts. This brings odd issues like there are simply no phone/camera charging sockets. I was also amazed at how much alcohol people could get through at altitude, you will probably also have to eat in shifts.

The guardians do try their best.

In reply to Lord Font:
If you are able to start mid-week, you may miss the main 'bubble' of skiers that progresses along the route and have (relatively) quiet huts - most organised tours will tend to do it weekend to weekend. It is certainly a bit of a 'hut crawl', with folks drinking their way along the route (the Dix hut has a beer menu...). The Vignettes hut definitely takes credit cards (certainly did in April and August 2016) and I suspect many of the other Swiss ones will as well as it's so popular.

In reply to Lord Font:

There may be plenty of booze in the huts but what there is not, is water for washing. For me the hardest part of the Haute Route was the increasingly bad diarrhoea that I suffered as a result of having to use the toilets then eat food with unwashed hands. By Zermatt the diarrhoea was contributing to my tiredness and poor mental state.

Best advice I can give you is to take a packt of antiseptic wipes for personal hygiene.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Good advice or take a small bottle of the antiseptic gel whatever always wash your hands and check the cash issue (re the post chris bedford). See below. I know things change but...

http://www.alpsinsight.com/stories/swiss-alps-hut-system/