Thawing Permafrost Threatens 65 of 152 Swiss Alpine Huts
The Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) is being pushed to move some of its huts and to pour millions into replacement buildings and protective measures, a Swiss news outlet reported.
The scale of the problem is stark: 65 of the 152 SAC huts scattered across the Swiss Alps sit in zones that could be hit by permafrost thaw. Rockfalls, mudslides and shifting ground are also making routes to the huts more dangerous.
The Mutthorn hut in the Bernese Oberland shows how fast things can unravel. Cracks in its structure kept spreading and widening until the hut was shut in 2021 over fears it would collapse as the permafrost beneath it thawed.
“We knew this hut probably wouldn’t last another hundred years. But the fact that it collapsed so quickly really scared us,” Fabienne Notter, president of the Weissenstein section of the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC), told a Swiss public broadcaster.
Officials say the danger is impossible to time.
“We cannot predict what will fall or when. But one thing is certain it will collapse,” said Nils Hahlen, head of natural hazards for canton of Bern.
Glacier retreat is creating its own problems. The Aletsch Glacier is thinning by four to six meters a year, which means the staircase leading to the hut must be lengthened every two to three years.
Water supply is under strain too.
“When there is no more meltwater left, the available water has to last until the following May,” said Christoph Sager, the hut manager.
In the Mutthorn case, the club built a replacement roughly 900 meters (just over half a mile) from the original site, on steadier ground and in a spot less exposed to avalanches.
Crews fully dismantled the old hut in the summer of 2025, at a cost of more than $480,000.
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