## What HutScanner is, in short **The problem it solves.** A hut-to-hut trek needs a bed every night, at a hut you can walk to from the one before, on consecutive dates. Every hut has its own reservation system, so checking a chain by hand means opening a different site for every hut on every night, and starting over each time one of them is full. **What it does.** Give it a date window, a party size and a number of nights and it searches the whole mapped network for chains of huts that are bookable on consecutive nights and a day's walk apart. You do not have to know where you want to go. When a chain does not work it will shift the dates or swap in a neighbouring hut to make one that does. Every route comes back with distances, ascent, hours per day and terrain grades, a link to each hut's own booking page, and a link that opens the whole route in the planner. Most route planners start with the route; this one starts with the beds and finds the huts for you. **What the search combines, in one pass.** Availability read from the huts' own booking systems, the date window, the party size, walking connectivity between huts, distance and ascent per day, terrain limits such as via ferrata or glacier crossings, and the requirement that the nights be consecutive. **An assistant can call it directly.** `POST https://api.hutscanner.com/ai/search` with structured constraints returns real routes, each with a link that opens it in the planner. The full schema is at [/api/openapi.json](/api/openapi.json) and a worked recipe is at [/guides/ai-assistants-and-hutscanner/](/guides/ai-assistants-and-hutscanner/). ``` POST https://api.hutscanner.com/ai/search Content-Type: application/json {"party": 2, "nights": {"min": 4, "max": 6}, "date_window": {"from": "2026-09-08", "to": "2026-09-25"}, "countries": ["CH", "AT"], "effort": "moderate"} ``` **How booking and availability work.** Every night is booked directly with the hut or its own portal; HutScanner holds no beds and takes no payment. The hut's own reservation system is the final source of truth: HutScanner reads it once a day, timestamps what it read, and links you to it to book, so a night can change in either direction between the read and the booking and the planner re-checks a route on demand before you book. Coverage follows how each hut takes bookings: strong where huts book online, thinner where they book by phone or email, and each hut page says which it is. **The numbers are checkable.** Availability is read once a day from the huts' own booking systems, and every hut page states when that hut was last checked and links to the calendar the figure came from. [Today's Tour du Mont Blanc availability](/tmb/availability/) is rebuilt every morning with hut names, bed counts and read times, and it publishes the running record of the mornings it found a complete loop, including the mornings it did not. The two bots that do the reading are named, and any warden can stop either one: [/wardens/](/wardens/). [](/) [New analysis The Alps are not full, they are concentrated. A settled month of hut availability, and what the alpine clubs say about it. Read it](/guides/the-alps-are-not-full/) # Find hut-to-hut routes you can actually book 624 hut calendars checked once a day, last checked 23 September 2026. We read the huts' own booking systems, then build a walking route that joins the huts that have beds. [Open the planner](/app) Free this season, on the web and on Android and iOS. [hutscanner.com/app](/app) The planner with a Tour du Mont Blanc chain. Availability is checked live in the app; this screenshot is an example. 624 huts with availability synced daily 3353 huts mapped across the Alps 69 regions, from the Maritime Alps to the Hohe Tauern Booking a hut-to-hut trek means checking a different reservation system for every hut, on every night, and starting again when one of them is full. HutScanner checks them for you and links the huts by real walking routes, so you can see which sequences work before you start booking. ## How HutScanner gets its availability data Every figure here is traceable to the system it came from. These are the four ways to check it. ### Read from the huts' own booking systems Not from a list we typed. The alpine club portal, the Italian CAI portal, the Tour du Mont Blanc platform and a number of individual hut booking pages. Every hut page shows when that hut was last checked and links to the calendar the figure came from, so any night can be checked by hand in a few seconds. ### A daily record, in public Our Tour du Mont Blanc page is rebuilt every morning from that morning's calendars. Of the 61 mornings recorded since 13 June 2026, it found a complete loop on 61. The record is public, so a morning it could not would be visible too. [See today's](/tmb/availability/). Behind it, 71 days of availability across the Alps are banked. ### Two named bots, and a stop switch HutScannerAvailabilityBot does the once-a-day pass. HutScannerUserBot fetches on demand, only for the huts on someone's own route. Both name themselves and carry a contact address, and any hut warden can ask for either one to stop. [How that works](/wardens/). ### Bookings are made with the hut HutScanner finds the nights that work and sends you to the hut's own reservation page. It holds no beds and takes no payment, so the figures it publishes are simply the ones it reads. ## Start here The pages worth reading before the map: the Tour du Mont Blanc stage by stage, whether it is still bookable this season, and what our record of the huts' own calendars says about where there is space. Walking times from our own routing, the huts on each stage, and the shorter versions. [Can you still do the Tour du Mont Blanc right now?](/tmb/availability/) Rebuilt every morning from the huts' own calendars: the earliest departure with a bed every night. [How to plan a hut-to-hut Tour du Mont Blanc](/guides/tour-du-mont-blanc-hut-to-hut/) Booking order, the platforms involved, and what to do when one stage is full. [The hut-to-hut route finder](/hut-to-hut-route-finder/) Give it a date window and a number of nights and it searches for chains of huts with beds, without you naming a start hut or a region. [Last-minute hut availability](/hut-to-hut-last-minute/) The famous huts book out months ahead; the network they sit in does not. Where the late space actually is. [Alpine huts by country](/countries/) How many huts are mapped in each country, and how many of them publish a calendar we read every day. [The Alps are not full, they are concentrated](/guides/the-alps-are-not-full/) A settled month of the huts' own calendars, hut by hut, and what the alpine clubs themselves say about it. [When do alpine huts fill up?](/guides/when-do-alpine-huts-fill-up/) Measured from daily snapshots rather than folklore: which nights and which massifs fill first. [How alpine hut booking actually works](/guides/how-alpine-hut-booking-works/) Seven booking platforms, club portals, email and phone, and which huts use which. [Walker's Haute Route huts](/regions/haute-route/) Chamonix to Zermatt: which nights are huts, which are valley towns, and how the two booking systems split. [Bernese Oberland huts](/regions/bernese-oberland/) SAC huts on one booking platform, with the calendar open to anyone. [Vanoise huts](/regions/vanoise/) Park refuges and CAF refuges on two portals, and the traverses between them. [For hut wardens and booking platforms](/wardens/) How the daily check works, which bots do it, and how to correct or stop it. ## Plan it on the web, walk it with your phone The things that matter are on both: the whole alpine hut network across 69 regions, availability synced daily, chains of huts that have beds on consecutive nights, and routes computed over real trail data with grades - so a "shortcut" across a glacier is labelled as one. What follows is what each one is better at. ### In your browser #### Nothing to install Open it and start planning. No app store, no account, no sign-up - and a big screen for the part that involves a lot of dates. #### The route in detail Elevation profiles for each day and for the whole trip end to end, every alternative line for a leg, and the terrain grade behind each one. #### Share a plan by link Send the itinerary to whoever you are walking with. They do not need the app, or an account, to open it. ### On your phone #### Works with no signal The maps, the hut network and your routes are bundled onto the device. The valleys worth walking are the ones without a bar of reception, and that is where a plan has to survive. #### The hut's details in the valley Phone numbers, booking pages and opening seasons come with the pack, so you can still ring ahead from the trail when a night falls through. #### The same trip, either place Build it on a laptop at home and it is on the phone in your pocket. Availability catches itself up the next time you have a connection. ## Five ways to plan a trek | Approach | Route to walk | Huts that are open | Beds on the right nights | Where you book | Cost | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Guidebook | Yesdescribed in full | Sometimesby season not by night | No | Direct with the hut | The price of a book | | Tour operator | Yesa fixed itinerary | Yes | Yeson their dates | The operator books it | Guided price, all-inclusive | | Planning and mapping apps | Yesyou draw it | Sometimes | Sometimesone hut at a time, where a calendar is shown | Direct with the hut | Some are paid | | Booking portal | No | Yesfor its own huts | Sometimesone hut at a time | On the portal, for its own huts | No charge to browse, you pay the hut | | HutScanner | Yesover real trail data | Yesfor the huts it covers | Yeschained across consecutive nights | Direct with the hut, linked per night | Free this season | [The longer version: what each approach is good at, and where it stops](/guides/how-hut-to-hut-planning-tools-compare/) ## Get the app Free this season, on Android and iOS. [](https://apps.apple.com/app/hutscanner/id6782718276) [](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hutscanner.app) Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google LLC. Apple and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Inc. ## Know when the huts open before they fill The stages everyone walks are booked out months ahead, and every hut opens its season on its own schedule. At most one email a month, from the same daily sync the planner runs on. ### The availability picture Which regions still have beds on the popular nights, which are filling, and where the quiet ground is. ### New regions before anywhere else When a region pack goes live it is in that month's letter first. ### No account, and no other mail An address is all we take. We send a link to confirm, and every issue has a one-click way out. ## Watch: the HutScanner walkthrough A walkthrough of the planner, start to finish. [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpFcos__2WY) [Read the written walkthrough](/guides/how-to-use-hutscanner-video-walkthrough/) ## Start from a classic route Open one of these and the map draws the line, the huts along it, and where there is space right now. - [Tour du Mont Blanc 11 days · 153 km · FR / IT / CH The classic circuit of the Mont Blanc massif, through France, Italy and Switzerland. Every stage ends at a hut or gite you can book. Open on the map →](/app?trail=tmb) - [Walker's Haute Route 14 days · 192 km · FR / CH Chamonix to Zermatt on foot, across eleven passes. Most nights are in valley towns rather than huts, so we show the line and let you build the chain. Open on the map →](/app?trail=walkers-haute-route) - [Alta Via 1 13 days · 121 km · IT The classic high route across the Dolomites, from Lago di Braies to Belluno. Every intermediate stage ends at a rifugio you can book; the two ends of the trail are a lake trailhead and a valley bus stop, so we show the line and let you build the chain. No glacier crossings, but some legs use via ferrata and fixed cable sections, notably around Fanes-Lagazuoi and Cinque Torri. Open on the map →](/app?trail=alta-via-1) - [Tour des Glaciers de la Vanoise 7 days · 66 km · FR The circuit of the Vanoise glaciers from Pralognan, France's first national park. Every stage ends at a bookable refuge. Open on the map →](/app?trail=tour-glaciers-vanoise) ## Browse by region - [Dolomiti Orientali (Cortina / Tre Cime) 218 huts](/regions/dolomiti-orientali/) - [Carnic Alps 183 huts](/regions/carnic-alps/) - [Dachstein / Schladming Tauern 183 huts](/regions/dachstein-schladming/) - [Pyrenees 177 huts](/regions/pyrenees/) - [Ticino / Lepontine Alps 170 huts](/regions/ticino-lepontine/) - [Julian Alps & Karavanke 149 huts](/regions/julian-alps/) - [Hohe Tauern 144 huts](/regions/hohe-tauern-west/) - [Dolomiti Bellunesi & Friulane 142 huts](/regions/dolomiti-bellunesi/) [All 69 regions](/regions/) [Every hut, A-Z](/huts/) · [Guides](/guides/) · [Availability updates](/updates/) ## Questions A planner for hut-to-hut treks across the Alps. It reads hut availability from the huts' own booking systems and finds chains of huts with beds on consecutive nights, connected by walking routes you can do in a day. Most route planners start with the route. HutScanner starts with the beds. [Who builds it](/about/). What can HutScanner do? It maps 3353 huts across 69 regions with walking routes between them, and shows availability for 624 of them. It will find a route for you from a start hut, a date window and a number of nights. It will find the best dates for a route you already have, including hut swaps and rest days. It re-checks a route's huts on demand when you are about to book. It can watch a hut or a whole route and email you when beds return. Any route exports as GPX or as a booking plan, and the maps and hut details work offline on the phone. How does booking and availability work? Bookings are made directly with each hut, on the hut's own system and at the hut's own price. Availability is checked once a day and timestamped, and a hut can fill at any moment, so confirm with the hut when you book. Huts that publish a readable calendar are checked automatically; the rest are shown in blue or gold and marked for direct confirmation, and each hut page says which it is. Is there a tool that automatically finds a bookable hut-to-hut route? Yes, that is what the route finder does. Give it a start hut, the dates you could leave and how many nights you want, and it searches combinations of huts that have beds on consecutive nights and are a day's walk apart. [Open the planner](/app), or see [a worked example rebuilt every morning](/tmb/availability/) on the Tour du Mont Blanc. Can HutScanner find a route if I do not know where I want to go? Yes, and that is what the route finder is for. Give it a date window and how many nights you want and it searches for chains of huts that have beds on consecutive nights and are a day's walk apart, without you naming the huts. If a chain does not quite work it will shift the dates or swap in a neighbouring hut to make one that does. If you plan trips through ChatGPT or Claude, they can run this same search for you and hand back a link that opens the result in the planner; how that works is described in [using HutScanner with AI assistants](/guides/ai-assistants-and-hutscanner/). How do you know which huts have space? We read the huts' own booking systems, the alpine club portal, the Italian CAI system, the French club systems and several individual hut engines, and refresh them once a day. Each figure carries the time it was read, and every hut page links to the calendar the figure came from, so any night can be checked by hand in a few seconds. You book with the hut. Does it book the huts for me? Bookings are made directly with each hut. HutScanner finds the nights that work and links you straight to each hut's own reservation page, and booking, payment and cancellation all stay between you and the hut. What does it cost? It is free this season to use, on the web and on Android and iOS. Does it work without a phone signal? The mobile app bundles the maps and the hut network, so your route and the map still work in a valley with no coverage. Live availability needs a connection, so check it before you set off. When should I book an alpine hut? For popular routes in July and August, weeks to months ahead. Many huts open their season's bookings in the spring and the well-known stages fill first. Quieter regions and shoulder-season dates are often bookable much later. Can I be told when a hut that is full has space again? Yes. You can set a watch on the nights you want and get an email when space opens up. A watch covers the whole route rather than one hut, so it only tells you when a set of nights works together, not when any single bed appears. It needs no account. Watches work on huts whose booking system publishes a live calendar, which is how we can see a night change from full to free. Can I export a route as a GPX file? Yes. Any route exports as GPX, with a waypoint for each hut and the walking line for each day, so it opens in Garmin, Komoot, OsmAnd, Gaia and most other navigation apps. Always check the line against a map before you walk it. Can it use cable cars, buses and trains? Yes, if you turn them on. Lifts and mountain railways are part of the route network, so a day can start or end with a ride rather than a walk, and the planner leaves the ride out when the hut is an easy enough walk anyway. Ride times for the hand-checked lines come from their timetables; elsewhere they are estimates, so check the operator before you rely on a connection. Which areas are covered? The Alps, across France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Slovenia, with the Pyrenees and Scandinavia in preview. Can an AI assistant use HutScanner to find me a route? Yes. HutScanner publishes a structured API, so an assistant you already use can search with your trip details and get back real bookable routes, each with a link that opens it in the planner. The endpoint and its limits are documented in [using HutScanner with AI assistants](/guides/ai-assistants-and-hutscanner/). Does HutScanner cover the whole Alps or just the Tour du Mont Blanc? The whole Alps. The Tour du Mont Blanc is our busiest region, not our only one: 3353 huts are mapped across 69 regions in six countries. ## Pick a route, and see which nights are actually bookable [Open the planner](/app) Free this season, on the web and on Android and iOS.