Does anyone happen to know of any bivouacs or free huts in the swiss Alps (preferably in the Bernese Oberland but acceptably anywhere else)? I mean to say like SAC huts but are un-manned and maintained by the grace of travelers passing through and leaving behind donations/pasta for others. Also some places you could overnight at. I know that they exist in the Italian Alps, but I've had trouble trying to find out of any on this side.
From my reading (I never looked for one) they seem few and far between. One that I have come across (reading, never visited it) is Bivouac du Dolent - La Maye CAS .
Good luck, and let us know what (if anything) you find.
Can you imagine climbing for 6 hours to a "free hut", where nobody is employed to clean it, and then arriving to find the place is absolutely filthy?
Do you put your sleeping bag down on top of the filth, clean the place up, or go back home? Unless you are a goat or a sheep, the idea of free hut accommodation on a mountain, is totally ridiculous, isn't it?
There are quite a few Schutzhütte around where the system works fine. There are also some free huts maintained by the Kanton or Gemeinde eg the Panixerhütte so perhaps it's not quite so ridiculous as it sounds.
A bit OT, but isn't a bivouac a temporary shelter, crabbled together from natural elements or tuapauline/military blankets for one or two nights for one or two people? ......... or was I conned when I was a yoof, to spend nights sleeping covered in bugs, under some fern leaves?
The free hut system relies on the goodwill and integrity of the users and the vast majority of these will clean up after themselves and leave the huts in the condition they would like to find them in so it's not very likely that a hut will be absolutely filthy. ( unless the door has been left open and said goats and sheep have taken up residence in there.)
Italy has a vast assortment of free huts, many for instance look like this and I can assure you that they are still well maintained and looked after if all you need is a place to stay. I'd hazard a guess that generally people who trek some 6 hours to some hut in the middle of no where are rather sensible when it comes to basic maintenance. Many of these places usually have some dry foods available as well, pasta and what nots.
TiMow yeah I'd agree with you, it's just in Italy it refers to these buildings as well that's why I used the word.