Amenity=alpine_hut differentiation

General talk Tagging general discussion
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Checking Austrian maps, I often come across wrong tagging of tourism=alpine_hut (and its relative tourism=wilderness_hut), both genuine mountain huts that are tagged as something else, and things that are no alpine_huts but are tagged as such. This makes it very hard when searching for such ammenities.

tourism=alpine_hut is often confused with alpine restaurants (“Hütte”, “Schutzhaus”), hunting lodges, hunting stands, alpine summer farms (Almwirtschaft, Alpwirtschaft, Sennhütte, english term for that?) that offer limited food but no accommodation, chalets that can be rented exclusively for some days, but also bivouac boxes (amenity=shelter, shelter_type=basic_shelter), lean-to’s, or wilderness huts, that may offer the same possibilities like alpine huts, but are not cared for by some dedicated team in place (Selbstversorgerhütte). Some places have “hut/Hütte” in their name, but are offering only food.

The current descriptions in English and German do give some criteria, but this is for me neither very structured, clear nor complete. When you come across something that looks like a “mountain hut” to you, it would be really helpful to have some identification key that asks for specific criteria and guides you in the right direction.

Please contribute to get a good guide for mappers!

Some criteria that I can think of:

  • Is it in a remote area, intended to provide board (food) and loding (sleeping) for hikers, managed during opening times, usually operated by an alpine club or similar?
    Is it a facility for hikers on multi-day routes to provide shelter, food and sleeping places that are provided by some human during opening time, and one can/should reserve it in advance?
    • Yes: It may be an tourism=alpine_hut.
  • Is is clearly private (locked)? Yes → maybe a chalet or a hunting stand?
  • Is it easily accessible by car or public cable car? Yes → Maybe a restaurant and hotel? At least in Austria, quite a few real alpine huts are accessible by car. To distinguish the role it has to facilitate the accessibility of the area for hikers, categories are used.
  • Does it offer all three shelter, food, and sleeping places?
  • Is it used for hunting? Does it have rather wide than high windows and a bench for someone to observe animals? Is it lockable? amenity=hunting_stand
  • Can I rent it only as an apartment or exclusively?
    • Yes, with high comfort, rather like an hotel: tourism=chalet
    • Yes, but it is basic (simple sleeping accommodation), and I have to do everything myself (heating, cooking, cleaning): tourism=wilderness_hut
  • Can I get a sleeping place on a per person basis?
  • Will I find food? No → tourism=guest_house
  • Is it operated by an alpine organization?
    • Yes → it is probably an alpine hut
    • No → May be an hotel or apartment
    • Cross overs may exists: Private run alpine huts are quite possible to find, and some remote alpine huts are operated like a hotel (hundreds of beds, reception, high standard rooms with private bathroom/shower or where built by alpine organizations but where sold and still operate as alpine huts, e.g. Stubenberghaus or Rudolfshütte)
  • What are the usual operating times?
    • Only weekends and holidays?
    • Only winter, only restaurant or bar? Maybe an Apres-Ski?
    • Only summer? Which times? (roughly, by 1/2 month or weeks, like
      • Fr-Su and holidays between 2nd Week of May until the end of the first week in September, and after that Sa and Su in September until 26th of October (note: ISO-convention: A week is counted to the month of the Thursday of that week:
        May Th[2] +1 day-Sep Th[1] +3 days Fr-Su,PH 7:00-22:00; Sep Th[1] +3 days - Oct 26 Sa, Su 7:00-22:00
      • When for accommodation, when for food?
      • Winter room available?
  • If shelter:
  • If run by an organization:

Another question is how to tag the available sleeping places:
Alpine huts often come with two levels of bedding:

  • Proper Beds, where each person has some separated bed in rooms with a low (maybe max. 6-8) number of persons per room.
  • The other possibility is mattresses laied side by side, often elevated, with little room for personal things at the foot of the mattress, and virtually no separation to the next mattress besides the edges of the mattresses; Usually the number of persons per room is high, reaching dozens of people. In Austria this would be called “Lager/Lagerplätze”.

For both it is common that sanitary facilities are share, for example one washing room and one toilet on a level.
To tag the number of rooms and beds, it seems that rooms=* and beds=* are used, but for the more basic sleeping places, I see no established tagging.

This questions may be only sensible for the (Central-)European area. If you can contribute to criteria and customs of other areas of the world, this would be highly appreciated!

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