UKC

(Apologies for posting this so late this year, but currently I’m so busy that - literally – I've just few precious minutes left each day for not-work-related stuff).

The status of the huts on the Italian side of the range for summer 2011 will be as follow (opening and closing dates are given as approximate, as they depend on weather conditions)

Mountain huts open with a warden on specified dates (winter rooms available for the rest of the year):

- Rifugio Elisabetta Soldini Montanaro (2200m) at the Combal - tel +39.0165. 844.080 - 17 June to 15 September

- Rifugio Francesco Gonella (3061m) at the Aiguilles Grises – tel. +39.0165.885.101 – 24th July to mid September

- Rifugio Franco Monzino (2580m) at the Chatelet (Innominata ridge) - +39.0165.809.553 - 19 June to 12 September

- Rifugio Torino Nuovo (3375m) at the Col du Geant - tel +39.340.22.70.121 / +39.0165.844.034 - 29 May to 30 September

- Rifugio Dalmazzi (2590m) at the Triolet- +39.0165.869.098 - 17 June to 15 September

- Rifugio Elena (2062m) at the Pre de Bar - +39.0165.844.688 – 16 June to 15 September


Open with warden for a limited time in July and August, open w/o warden for the rest of the year:

- Rifugio Borelli-Pivano (2310m) at the Combalet (Aiguille Noire) mid- July- first week of September.


Mountain huts and bivy huts open all year long w/o warden, with few implements as blankets or some cooking tools (but NO stove!):

Bivacco Gino Rainetto or Giovane Montagna (3040m) at the Petit Mont Blanc

Rifugio Quintino Sella (3371m) at the Rochers du Mont Blanc (Miage wall)

Bivacchi Eccles or Lampugnani /Grassi (new!) and Crippa (3850m) at Pic Eccles

Bivacco Della Fourche – Alberico e Borgna (3680m) at Col De La Fourche

Bivacco Ettore Canzio (3810m) at Col Des Grandes Jorasses

Rifugio Boccalatte- Piolti (2804m) at the Grandes Jorasses (still no warden, may be rebuilt next year)

Bivacco Mario Jachia (3264m), Aiguille De L’Eveque


Capanna Giusto Gervasutti (2835m), Freboudze glacier (to be replaced this summer with a new and very controversial structure)

Bivacco Gianni Comino (2430m), Greuvetta glacier

Bivacchi Cesare Fiorio (2800m), Pre De Bar glacier


Mountain bivy huts open all year, no warden, they serve as shelters for the night, but no internal equipment.

- Bivacco dell’Estelette (2958m) at the Col De L’Estelette

- Bivacco Craveri (3490m) at Breche Nord de Peuterey (Peuterey Ridge)

- Bivacco della Brenva (3200m), Brenva Glacier


Low altitude private huts not strictly part of the Mt. Blanc range but still useful for the area, open with warden on specified dates. They ALL have mandatory reservation.

- Gite D’Etape Le Randonneur (1807m) - Val Vény (Pra Neyron) - +39.349.53.68.898 - 20 June to 15 September

- Rifugio Monte Bianco (1700m) - Val Vény - +39.0165.86.90.97 - 15 June to 18 September

- Rifugio Maison Vielle (1956m) - Val Vény - +39.337.23.09.79 - 15 June to 30 September

- Rifugio Bertone (1970m) - Val Ferret – +39.0165.844.612 - 1 June to 30 September

- Rifugio Bonatti - (2025m) - Val Ferret - +39.0165.86.90.55 - 22 May to 30 September

- Rifugio Alessio Allegri (1800m) La Suche - Val Sapin - +39.347.41.188.83 – mid July to end of September,

Some relevant point:

The brand new Francesco Gonella Hut (3041m) on the Italian normal route to Mt. Blanc will be finally open on July 24th! (yeeeeeeaaaah!).

The Rifugio Boccalatte-Piolti (2804m) on the normal route of the Grandes Jorasses) will be open but without warden. The status of this hut is at the centre of considerable discussions – it may be due for being demolished and rebuilt soon, but no one knows how soon

Good news for all you people climbing in the Freney/Brouillard pillars area or doing the Innominata – the 53 years old Lampugnani bivy hut (the upper one of the Crippa / Lampugnani pairs of structure) has been replaced by a brand new bivy hut, donated by the Regione Valle d’Aosta and the Fort Bard mountain museum. This hut (same shape and size as the old one but completely new, with full set of internal implements, blankets, pillows, cooking tools, sorry no stove) has been entitled again to Lampugnani and lo and behold to Giancarlo Grassi, our beloved “master of ice”. The “old” (30 years) Crippa lower hut is still there, not sure how long however.


Another bivy hut on the Italian side that will be replaced this summer, but with far more controversial results – the Capanna Giusto Gervasutti on the Freboudze Glacier. I’ll soon post something on this in the UKClimbing Forum.

If there's anything else you need to know on the topic, let me know here.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:

Excellent Luca. Still only 4 places in the new Eccles then?

In reply to Luca Signorelli:

Cheers Luca, was up at the Monzino hut yesterday & the warden is already there with the hut open for business.

By the way, presume the new Lampugnani hut will sleep exactly the same number as previously?

In reply to jon:

Yes, but accomodation quality is far better! CAAI did a nice job, I believe they used the VdA donation rather well.

In reply to jon:
Its 6 at a squeeze hopefully!

In reply to walts4:
Precisely!

Was Armando up there?

In reply to Luca Signorelli:

Didnt catch his name, but he graciously allowed us to stop in the winter room even though he was there & lent us a pan into the bargain.

looking forward to trying the new accomodation up at the eccles some time in the near future,

In reply to jon:

The old hut was down the 3 on the inside with a rotting mattress on the outside.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:

Thanks Luca

In reply to Luca Signorelli: cheers luca, really handy info for trip planning

In reply to Luca Signorelli: Do you think it will be necessary to book the Gonella hut well in advance? I'm thinking it might prove really popular seen as it's not been open for several years. Or do you think it will be okay to just phone and book the night before or just turn up (what we normally do)

In reply to Sonya Mc:

Hi Sonya, it will really attract people, particularly at the beginning, as it's brand new, look very comfortable and yes, the hut had been closed for few years now. But the route has not changed, so don't expect Gouter like crowds. In any case, booking the night before may be sufficient, except for August weekends because of local traffic of hikers going to the hut.

In reply to Luca Signorelli: Thanks Luca, good tip. We're there for 3 weeks (start of August) so will avoid weekends (and hope for good weather)

For anyone who's interested, here's the sequence of pictures of the replacement of the old Lampugnani with the new Grassi bivy hut. Check the PDF leaflet for a picture of the new bivy

http://www.planetmountain.com/News/shownews1.lasso?l=1&keyid=38139

In reply to jon:
Well spotted Jon! The picture in the page I've linked that caption "Lampugnani" is actually a picture of Crippa, the lowest of the two. I'll tell Elio (the photographer) about the caption mistake.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:

Ok, here's how the new Gervasutti hut will look... if this summer will be put on place as planned.

http://www.scuolasucai.it/images/circolari/album_gervasutti.pdf

But this is becoming quite an hot topic in Courmayeur, with the local guides feeling very strongly against it. More on this controversy soon!

In reply to Luca Signorelli: I have seen something similar to that above Mittenwald, south of Garmisch Austria. It was a visitor attraction rather than a hut, but the same cigar shape with a window end to it.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:

Seem to remember something like this on Elbrus from the soviet era.

First impressions are that it will be preassembled for ease of installation on site & cheap.
Not swayed by the looks or its ability to fit into the surroundings.
Think that if you stumbled onto it by chance , you would be convinced that the aliens had landed.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:

Jesus! What an eyesore.

I quite liked the old Gervasutti hut, in fact, probably one of my favourites around.

It looks like they want it to become a bit like a destination for walkers, as the one up there is not getting as much traffic as they may want it to. Bit of a same, as the location, atmosphere and solitude of the old one made it quite the little gem.

I hope at least they rethink the colours and furniture. Those stools seem extremely impractical if it gets a few people on a given weekend...

In reply to Luca Signorelli: hey luca, any ideas on current conditions for the AIG grises route on mont blanc, and the tournette spur? Cheers mate.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Isn't it...? Why do architects/alpine clubs seem intent on stamping THEIR 'visions' on the mountains instead of letting the natural mountain architecture determine the shape. Seems like we're getting a glut of these monstrosities now - just about all the last new huts in the Alps. The Grandes Jorasses deserves better than that.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:
First reaction - "Yikes! Hideous!
Then I read the article (or an English version thereof) and was impressed with the marketing - picture of the old hut in not so contrasty drab monochrome, then - like magic, a gorgeous colour picture with blue skies and the new hut (still looking hideous) perched on its ledge.

Reading on, you have the nice clean interior with windows and a nice panoramic view out of the "snout" (for want of a better word). Looks fabulous.

Except, it is completely at odds with its surroundings and looks like something that fell off a plane.
Or, more likely as walts suggests, was transported in from a galaxy far far away where the aliens can't actually breath oxygen but like the view.

I was particularly amused that there is some sort of sensor that determines when a change of air is needed. So just as you've got it nice and comfy, some port opens and a boatload of ice cold air is pumped in. Lovely.

Here’s my take on the story behind the “Freboudze telescope”:

A couple of year ago the owners of the old hut (the SUCAI section of Italian Alpine Club) decided they wanted to restore it. Initially it was just a restoration project (probably needed, but let’s remember that the Gervasutti is a 40-people-per-year hut, not exactly a popular destination, and the access is not trivial, so it wasn’t one of those cases of people loudly complaining about the state of the hut). But then the whole thing switched to rebuilding the hut from scratches (thanks to some money apparently put by the VdA administrators). The Courmayeur guides had already put forward their own proposal – the president of the Courma guides bureau is Arrigo Gallizio, an ex top car designer with a long experience with state of art materials etc.. It was a simple single module hut, self sufficient in terms of power usage and waste disposal, rather spartan but definitely comfy as far as mountain bivy hut go.

Then someone at Turin got this idea to use a proposal put forward in a post doc thesis at the local Architecture faculty (guess why?) and re-tool it as a “mountain” hut. So you get the impractical bar lounge stools, the touch screen computer (in the middle of friggin Freboudze and in the age of smartphones), and the Mars colony module look. The reaction in Courma has been mostly “yeah sure”, and Arrigo has been quoted in several local newspaper saying variations of “they better not even try putting this in place”. Here’s a quotation of the Telegraph

“But not everyone is happy about the new architecture. Arrigo Gallizio, president of the Alpine Guide Bureau at Courmayeur on the Italian side of Mont Blanc, said the old refuge at Bivacco was "fine as it was", adding: "The old refuges had a unique charm and history. Why throw that all away? The impression is that they [the architects] want to amaze you, that they pursue an idea for the sake of appearance. Why treat the mountains so badly? And above all, why cancel signs of the mountaineering history?"”

(Actually Arrigo never felt there wasn't a need for a restoration of the old hut, so he's been misquoted here)

My own opinion is that, while I’m normally a big lover of modern architecture and modern art, this “thing” is

1) Incredibly ugly and visually intrusive (ask yourself - would you like this one in your backyard?)

2) A monumental waste of public money, as this will never be used by more than an handful of hardcore climbers each year

3) A throwback to the culture of “modern for modern’s sake” in an age when “sustainable and not intrusive” should be the parameter for mountain architecture


I've also a creeping and rather unsettling feeling here that, as mountains are of everyone, they belong to no one, and so up there anything (including this kind of stuff) really goes. In this specific case this speaks volume about the current state of things in Italy (just speak louder than anyone else, and you'll get your way)

As I’m writing now the controversy is heating up quite a bit, and there’s now the real chance of an actual confrontation on this subject. I'll obviously keep you posted.

In reply to TicTacBigToe:

Hi Jimmy, they're both in decent conditions, snowy but in condition. Innominata and Brouillard ridges are in conditons too, and few goulottes on the Brouillard side have been climbed. Major problem now is unstable weather in the afternoon, but it will slightly settle down later on.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:
This suggests that it has already happened?
http://www.snowalps.com/valledaosta/news/il-primo-rifugio-high-tech-delle-a...

Not so, Luca?

In reply to pneame:

Not unless anything has happened in the last week (which would suprise me a lot) and definitely not by the article date. By the way, the article itself is extraordinarily inaccurate (it's not the "first hi tech hut of the Alps" and 4 hours is a bloody long time to walk from Lavachey

In reply to Luca Signorelli: How unpleasant. The old hut (as do many of its type) blended in unobstrusively. Why the need to have bright red? Practically it is clearly a terrible design. Look at the impressions of the inside and imagine what it will be like after a couple of years of climbers clomping in with axes, crampons, and damp ropes, and then spilling half cooked pasta on the floor. Furhter, half the complicated gadgets will break or simply not work - I speak from experience of working in an "eco-bling" building, and this at sea-level.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:
Bit of relevant updates:

- Rifugio Gonella will officially open between July 1st and July 10th 2011... BUT if you're simply happening to be around there, I guess you'll find a place to stay. But after July 10th, please call to make a reservation

http://www.rifugiogonella.com/

For many reasons the Gonella it is quickly becoming - this year - the destination anywhere near a MB normal route.... but I'm still wondering how many people will come to actually climb MB and not just hang around....

In reply to Luca Signorelli:

Bump just this keep these info floating

In reply to Luca Signorelli: Holy shit!! What the F**K is that?!!! I was up at that hut twice last year. Once with Oscar Lopez and again with a friend. I loved that hut. Thought it was the best hut in the massif. It was simple, had comfy beds, loads of blankets, cooking stuff and electricity!! It was awesome. Also it was really quite. Never saw anyone in the whole area the two times I was up their.

If that thing gets built it will be a real shame. The guy who design must have no common sense at all! Whats with the big window that dosen't even look at the main feature in that area. The Grandes Jorasses!!

In reply to Ally Baba: Another thing. How un-comfy do those beds look. I like a big squishy over-sized mattress, which is exactly what the hut has.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:

New Rifugio Gonella (on the Italian normal route to Mont Blanc) officially open from this weekend

http://www.rifugiogonella.com/

In reply to Luca Signorelli:
Nice that the Gonella hut is finally open!
Any news about the condition of the glacier above the Gonella hut? Or is climbing the rock ridge directly from the hut the recommended option nowadays (unless you fancy vertical ice climbing)?

Well, maybe bit off topic question, but still interesting.

In reply to Luca Signorelli:


Rifugio Gonella open and in full swing . By the way, the warden contacts are

Davide +39 347 2574536 (it's the same Davide of the Dalmazzi hut)

Mauro +39 340 4065672

Access to the Dome glacier is via the usual route.