Hovel

As an alpine hut ( in Alemannic -speaking Alpine hut ) is called the huts of the transhumance in the Alps.

Original function

Huts are the living and stable block, in which the pastoralists ( Senner ) over the summer to live while they attend the grazing in the mountains on a mountain pasture cattle. Depending on the region, these huts found in scattered location, in small Rotten ( a hamlet similar), or as an alpine village.

Unless it is a dairy industry, has been, or is occasionally also the milk into cheese processed ( Kasalm ). Where this is not the case, the milk is transported over cableways or even by pipeline into the valley for further processing.

By the manure of cattle and thus the higher nitrogen content in the soil, the immediate environment of a hut is usually a very different flora than the rest of the environment.

The number of huts, which are managed in the traditional sense, is always lower because the grazing in the mountains economically hardly worthwhile and can be found for very physically strenuous and ultimately very lonely work hard to appropriate workers.

Current use forms

Since the intensive tourist development of the mountains in the last hundred years, the function of an alpine hut has fundamentally changed:

• Several huts that lie at walking distances were converted into shelters or, in winter sports areas in huts, and look hikers, skiers and tourists
• Many huts also offer dining options. Was it produced 20 or 30 years ago even consume dairy products there, so although there is a still celebrates "proper " kitchen, but the necessary foods often come from the valley. In the context of agro-tourism, and modern ecological agriculture but can in favorable locations with high passenger volumes again be resorted to commissioning of Serviced, which then no longer self-sufficiency, but the production and distribution of " local food " is.
• A major chunk of the huts but has assumed the function of a holiday home of the owners. In many areas, there is also the possibility to rent mountain huts. The offer ranges from traditional huts with outhouse and no electricity to private cabins with comfortable beds, electricity, running water and access to the house.