An alpine hut is not a hotel and not a bothy. It sits somewhere in between, and it runs on a set of conventions that nobody writes down because everyone there already knows them. None of it is difficult. It is just easier if you have read it once.
Arriving
Boots come off at the door. There is a rack or a shelf in the porch, and a pile of communal clogs or slippers in various sizes. Every staffed hut in the Alps works this way, and walking into the dining room in boots is the one thing that will actually get you spoken to.
Aim to arrive by mid-afternoon. Dinner is at a fixed time, usually somewhere between 18:00 and 19:00, and the warden needs to know you are alive and coming. Arriving after dinner has started is poor form and may mean no dinner.
Check in with the warden. They will have a list. Confirm your name, your booking, whether you are on half board, and any dietary requirement, which is much easier to accommodate at 15:00 than at 18:30. This is also the moment to ask about tomorrow: conditions on the pass, whether the route is clear, how long it really takes. A warden's assessment of the ground beyond their own hut is the single most valuable thing available in the building.
Pay attention to how they want paying. A great many huts still take cash only, and there is no cash machine. Some now take cards. If you did not check when booking, ask on arrival rather than after dinner.
The dormitory
Most beds in most huts are in shared dormitories - a Matratzenlager, dortoir or camerata - which can mean anything from a room of six to a loft of forty. The bunks are usually side by side with no divider, and you are allocated a place rather than choosing one.
Blankets and pillows are provided. Sheets are not. You bring a sleeping bag liner, and it is compulsory almost everywhere for hygiene. A silk or cotton liner weighs very little and is the single most important thing in your pack that is not clothing.
Claim your spot, then get organised at once. Unpack what you need for the night while it is still light and people are downstairs. Rummaging through a rucksack in the dark at 23:00 is the other thing that will get you spoken to.
Lights out is early and enforced, typically 22:00. People are getting up at 05:00 to climb something.
Earplugs. Someone will snore. On a busy night in a forty-person loft, several people will snore.
Dinner
Dinner is communal, served at a set time, at long tables, and it is usually the same meal for everybody. It is often very good and almost always more substantial than you expect, because the warden knows what you have just walked and what you are about to walk.
You will be seated with strangers, frequently of a different nationality, and this is a large part of the point. The conversation is reliably about where people have come from, where they are going, and what the weather is doing.
Vegetarian is widely accommodated if declared in advance. Anything more specific needs to be flagged at booking, not on the night, since supplies arrive by helicopter or on somebody's back.
Water, washing, and the rest
Water is not guaranteed to be drinkable, and may not be plentiful. Many high huts collect meltwater or rain, and some sell bottled water rather than serving tap water. There will be a sign. Believe the sign.
Showers are a luxury, not a fixture. Where they exist they are often coin-operated and time-limited. At altitude there may be no shower at all, and washing means a cold tap.
Toilets vary enormously, from normal plumbing at a valley hut to a long drop over a considerable void. Bring your own paper as a matter of habit.
Drying room. Most huts have one. Use it for wet boots and shells, and do not leave anything you would mind losing.
Leaving
Breakfast is early and usually laid out rather than cooked to order. If you need a very early start, ask the night before - many huts will leave something out for you.
Settle up before you go. Strip your liner off the bunk, fold the blankets the way you found them, and check the drying room. Then leave a note in the book if there is one, because the next person reading it is deciding whether to go the way you just came.
A note on winter rooms
Many huts keep a Winterraum, refuge d'hiver or winter room that stays open when the hut is closed and unstaffed. These are not a booking; they are shelter. There is usually a wood stove, blankets, and an honesty box. Different rules, different skill level, and not the subject of this guide - but worth knowing that the hut being closed does not always mean the building is shut.
Once you have done one night, all of this becomes automatic. If you are working out which huts to string together, HutScanner holds the walking network and live-checked availability across the Alps, so you can see which runs of consecutive nights are open. You book directly with each hut; we are a planning aid, not a booking service.