In the hands of Europeans, a mountain hut is more than shelter. It’s an expression of centuries of culture and intimate knowledge of life in the continent’s highest peaks. The photo-dense Alpine Refuges offers a tour of some of these site-specific architectural gems, thirty-four in all, from the tiny and modernist Bivacco Gervasutti in Val Ferret, Italy, to the stunningly situated Rifugio Passo Santner farther east in the Dolomites. “An effort was made to include a global selection of mountain huts,” author Aaron Rolph writes, but only two are outside Europe and just one is in North America, Canada’s Jim Haberl Hut. It’s a reminder of what higher ambitions and a head start can get you: a bucket list of radical roofs to place over your head.
