For hut wardens and booking platforms
One address for corrections, removals and everything else: hi@hutscanner.com. We aim to reply within 48 hours.
HutScanner is a planning tool for hut-to-hut hikers. It shows which huts currently have space so that people can plan a workable route, then book directly with each hut. If you run a hut, help manage one, or operate a booking platform, this page sets out what we collect, how we collect it, what we display, and what we will change on request. It is deliberately public and deliberately plain: check it against what you see in your own logs, and if anything does not match, tell us.
What we collect
Availability information only: bed counts and open dates, as they appear on public booking pages. That is the complete list today. The one addition we may make in future is prices as shown on the same public pages, so hikers can see the rough cost of a night before they book; if that happens, this page will say so before it goes live.
We do not collect guest details or bookings, or personal information of any kind. We do not access anything behind a login.
How we collect it
- Each source is checked twice a day (morning and afternoon, Central European time), not more often, other than the temporary study described below.
- Within a run, requests are spaced out rather than sent in bursts.
- Our requests identify themselves. The user agent names HutScanner (HutScannerAvailabilityBot) and carries a contact address, so any operator can see in their logs exactly who we are and how to reach us.
- If a source returns an error or a technical block, collection from that source stops. We do not retry harder, disguise our requests, or work around barriers. One request in return: a technical signal does not always make intent clear, so if you want us to stop, please also tell us directly - hi@hutscanner.com reaches a person, and a plain sentence beats us guessing at an error code.
A temporary study, 14-20 September 2026. For one week we are also checking hut-reservation.org (DAV/OeAV/SAC/AVS huts) and the Tour du Mont Blanc booking platform a little more often than usual: once every two hours, and nothing more frequent than that. The goal is simply to learn how quickly a free bed actually gets rebooked, so we can set a sensible permanent cadence rather than guessing. An earlier version of this page described a shorter five-minute sampling window; we decided against it and it was never run. Every request still identifies itself, is still spaced out, and still stops on any error or block. This study ends on 20 September; after that, both sources return to the same twice-daily cadence as everything else. If you would rather your hut were excluded from it now, email us and we will do that immediately.
There is a second identity in our logs and yours: HutScannerUserBot. That one is not on a schedule at all. When a hiker is about to book and presses "re-check now" in the app, we read the current availability for just the huts on their route, for just those dates, so that what they see matches what your booking system says at that moment rather than what it said this morning. It is a handful of requests, and only when someone is actually looking at your hut. We gave it its own name deliberately, so you can tell the two apart at a glance and stop either one without the other. Everything above applies to it unchanged: the same contact address in the user agent, the same spacing between requests, the same stop on any error or block, and the same daily ceiling per source. If you want the daily collection to continue but not this, or the other way round, just say which - the answer is one line in our configuration either way.
What we display
Forward-looking availability: which upcoming nights currently show space at a hut, always with a visible note of when it was last checked, and always attributed to its source. It is an indication for planning, not a confirmed booking.
Every availability result links to the hut's own booking page or its booking platform. HutScanner takes no bookings and handles no payments. A hiker who finds a hut through us completes the booking with the hut, on the hut's own system.
Corrections and removal
If anything we show about your hut is wrong, or you would rather it were shown differently or not at all, email us. Three standing options:
- Correct it. We fix wrong or out-of-date information about your hut.
- Show it differently. For example, showing that the hut is open without showing bed counts.
- Remove it. We stop collecting and showing availability for your hut.
No form, no account, no justification needed: it is your hut's booking information.
One thing stays: the hut itself. Like any hiking map, HutScanner shows huts as part of the walking network - name, location, and a pointer to your website or public contact details. Removal covers the availability layer, which is yours to switch off at any time.
A note on response times. HutScanner is run by a small team, and we are sometimes in the mountains without signal. We aim to reply within 48 hours and usually will; if an automatic reply says we are away, the clock starts on our return, and corrections and removals are the first thing handled then.
Working with wardens
We know wardens are dealing with real operational pressures, including late changes to bookings that are hard to refill and hikers arriving with rigid plans that no longer match conditions. We think better availability information can help with some of this, and we would rather build that with wardens than around them. If you run a hut and want your information shown differently, corrected, removed, or if you simply want to talk about what would actually be useful to you, email us. We aim to respond within 48 hours.
Contact
Everything goes to hi@hutscanner.com. The buttons below open an email with the subject already filled in, so your request lands in the right place and is first in the queue.