France has "refuges", but the word mushes a wide variety of accommodations together. Around Chamonix "refuges" will be full-service hotels sitting above glacier

France has "refuges", but the word mushes a wide variety of accommodations together. Around Chamonix "refuges" will be full-service hotels sitting above glaciers, resupplied by helicopter. But most of the refuges, in most of the Alps, are just the same as bothies : small, romantic, cold, smelling of smoke and damp limestone, often maintained by a few men who once got up there alone for a whole month to rebuild old walls, and a great place to make serendipitous friends.