Hotel du Trift

As we step out of the mountain storm into the warm welcoming environment of Hotel du Trift we are welcomed by Hugo the proprietor in his booming Swiss voice

A blazing fire warms up the dining room where we are seated next to a convivial group of hikers from Belgium.  Hugo brings out dish after dish of Swiss food and mugs of cold beer.  We swap stories of previous treks we have taken - they tell us of hiking in Kashmir and we recount journeys up Vietnam's Mount H and Mount Kinabalu in Borneo.  

Hotel Trift is wonderful - I highly recommend the whole experience.  The facility is certainly rustic - the hot shower never actually worked for me and the bunk room was quite snug for 8 of us.  But given the picturesque location high in the mountains, the great food, warm fire, and any indoor plumbing at all (the toilets and sinks did work fine) seemed an amazing luxury.   Hotel Trift was built originally in the 1890s and restored in the last few years .  It cannot be easy or inexpensive to restore a remote Swiss Hut - we watched helicopters airlift building materials in for another hut expansion project.  

The next morning we wake up with the rest of the rugged European hikers at around 6am to fantastically blue skies and a breakfast of muesli, bread of coffee (is this a great breakfast setting or what?).  

We decided to stay at Hotel du Trift another nights and make Day 2 an assault on Metalhorn - a 3,406 high mountain that looms above Trift.