Hikes to bivouac huts

How bivouac huts work

A fixed bivouac, the Italian bivacco fisso, is not a small mountain hut: in the CAI tradition it is an unstaffed building of modest size, almost always open and free of charge, intended as a makeshift shelter and an emergency stop for anyone caught at altitude. It is often a single prefabricated room that normally sleeps no more than fifteen, and inside you will find the bare minimum for shelter rather than any kind of service. There is no warden and no food, so everything you need for the night, from sleeping bag to stove, goes up in your rucksack, and places cannot be booked: whoever arrives squeezes in, and the shelter's emergency purpose comes before anyone's outing.

In recent years the CAI has had to remind people more than once that bivouacs are emergency structures rather than resorts, after cases of shelters left full of rubbish or damaged. The etiquette is short: carry every scrap of waste back down, leave the place as tidy as you would hope to find it, shut the door and windows firmly before you go and, where there is one, sign the hut book. The Bivacco del Suretta and the igloo bivouac on Monte Due Mani appear on our pages as day destinations, but they deserve the same care as if you were spending the night.