Staying in a Mountain Hut in France: Booking, Costs and Etiquette

Booking: when, where and how

6:45 p.m. The sun is slipping off the ridges, the common room smells of soup, and a hiker pushes the door open without a reservation. The hut keeper counted beds and plates the night before: there might be a spot on a bench tonight, but nobody’s promising. At a hut, your evening is decided long before you hit the trail.

So step one is booking. Don’t picture a bare shelter: in France, a mountain hut (refuge) has bunk rooms and a dining room, and in season it’s staffed (refuge gardé), meaning a hut keeper, the gardien, runs it and cooks dinner. Your reservation lets the keeper assign bunks and plan the meals, and it guarantees you a bed: huts are in high demand on weekends and all summer, and some have very little space [1]. For huts run by the French Federation of Alpine and Mountain Clubs (FFCAM), you book online, on each hut’s own website, and pay a deposit for your bed by card [2].

Read the cancellation terms before you pay: French consumer law’s 14-day cancellation window doesn’t apply to hut stays. At the Valmasque hut, in the Mercantour in the southern French Alps, if you cancel more than 3 days before your stay, you get your deposit back minus €0.35 per night per person; any later, and the deposit is gone [2]. When you book, give the hut keeper your cell phone number, your route and your arrival time, which help if something goes wrong, plus any allergies or dietary needs [1].

What a night and half board cost

Prices vary from hut to hut, depending on the altitude, how hard supplies are to bring up, and the condition of the building [1] [4]. Two FFCAM examples in the Mercantour, for 2026: a night’s lodging alone costs €21 at the Valmasque hut and €23 at the Rabuons hut, and FFCAM members pay half price [5] [6] (what that membership costs and covers). At the Valmasque, half board (demi-pension), which in a French hut means your bed, dinner and breakfast for one price, comes to €55 for an adult [5].

Where does the money go? The French Hiking Federation (FFRandonnée) broke down a €20 night in an FFCAM hut: €1 to €1.50 for the hut keeper, to cover cleaning and daily upkeep, €6 for routine maintenance of the building, €3 for the FFCAM’s operating costs, and €10 for renovating huts [4].

As for paying, bring cash: the Rabuons hut doesn’t take cards, only cash, French checks and chèques-vacances, a French vacation voucher [6]. For a visitor, that means cash. The French Hiking Federation suggests carrying €50 per person to be safe, and reminds FFCAM members not to forget their membership card [1].

What to pack for the night

The hut provides a blanket or comforter and a pillow; the linens are up to you: a sleeping bag liner, the thin sheet sack the French call, not very appetizingly, a sac à viande, or “meat bag,” and a pillowcase [1]. The rest comes down to a few items.

• A headlamp, kept on you after dark and switched to red light in the bunk room if it has that mode, so you don’t blind your neighbors [1].
• Earplugs, if you’re a light sleeper [1].
• A water bottle by your bed: in summer, bunk rooms often get warm [1].
• Your sleep clothes out of your pack before lights-out, and not in a plastic bag, whose rustling wakes up the whole room [1].
• For kids, their own slippers: small sizes are often in short supply among the clogs lent out at the door [1].

Arrival, dinner, lights-out: the rhythm of the hut

When you arrive, check in with the hut keeper, who will show you to your bunk room. Hiking boots stay at the entrance, in a room set aside for them, along with poles and wet gear: that’s where you slip on the clogs or slippers provided [1]. Plan to arrive by mid-afternoon: showing up after 7 p.m. is frowned upon, because dinner is served only once [1].

Dinner, for that matter, is a single set menu, served at a fixed time, around 6:30 or 7 p.m., and eaten all together. Lending a hand to set the table or clear it is always appreciated. Order the next day’s packed lunch the night before [1]. Lights-out is set by the hut keeper, usually at 9 p.m., 10 p.m. at the latest; anyone who wants to stay up does so quietly in the common room [1].

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Two details head off misunderstandings. Phone charging isn’t a guaranteed service: in remote spots, electricity often comes from solar-charged batteries, so power is limited, and hut keepers charge phones as best they can because a phone has become safety gear. And if you’re camping near the hut, ask the keeper where to pitch your tent so you don’t block the helicopter landing zone [1].

Unstaffed huts: off-season, everything changes

Once summer is over, from late September to early June, mountain huts in France aren’t staffed, except sometimes in March and April for the spring ski season. Some keep a winter room open, a smaller, more basic section, usually with a stove, minimal lighting, something to cook with and somewhere to sleep, for a modest fee [1]. At both the Valmasque and the Rabuons, it’s €8 a night in 2026 [5] [6].

Enlarge photo

Off-season, there’s no hut keeper and no meals: bring your own food. Bunk rooms aren’t necessarily heated, so pack a sleeping bag rated for the season [1]. The FFCAM now advises booking and paying online ahead of time, at least for some huts, but warns that a reservation doesn’t guarantee a bed: other hikers may show up without one [7].

With kids or a dog

Kids are welcome, and prices reflect that: at the Valmasque, a night costs €5 for kids under 8, and half board is €29 for ages 4 to 7 [5]. Call the hut keeper before you head out: they know the trail conditions and the weather, and can point out sights along the way to keep younger hikers motivated [1].

A dog raises two questions. The first is the hut: whether dogs are allowed is up to the hut keeper, so ask when you book. The second is the trail: in the core zone of Écrins National Park, for example, dogs are banned, even on a leash or carried, except dogs working with livestock, service dogs and avalanche search dogs [8]. Before you go, check the rules for the national park on your route.

The smart move: call the hut keeper the day before. They know the weather, the trail conditions and how many beds are left, and they’ll know you’re on your way.

Guillaume Hoarau

Camping, backpacking, bushcraft and hiking

Guillaume Hoarau writes for Outfarer about camping, backpacking, bushcraft, and hiking. A survival-skills buff and a collector of vintage field manuals, he loves clear explanations, lists that actually help and other people’s stories, which he tells well.

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