Alpine Refuge is a small collection of hand-built mountain cabins where the signal is clear, the firewood is stacked, and the only schedule is yours.
Drop us a message or call directly. We reply to every enquiry the same day, usually within a couple of hours.
Contact usSummer in the mountains is not the same as summer anywhere else. The mornings are cold. The afternoons can be warm enough for a t-shirt and then turn grey and blustery in twenty minutes. Most guests who come to Alpine Refuge for the first time pack for the version of summer they know from lower elevations, and they spend the first evening wishing they had brought one more layer. This is the list we wish we could hand everyone before they leave home.
Read more →A lot of guests arrive at the cabins having never used a wood-burning stove before. That is completely fine. The stoves in the Larch, Spruce, and Fir are all straightforward once you understand a few basics. This guide covers what we tell every first-time guest, written down so you can refer back to it during your stay.
Read more →People ask us this question more than almost any other. The honest answer is that each season is genuinely good for different reasons, and the best time depends on what you are actually looking for. We have been here through nine full years of seasons now, and this is what we have learned.
Read more →Every cabin was built or restored by Clara and a small crew of local carpenters. We know every beam, every window latch, every quirk. When something needs fixing, we fix it ourselves.
You will never arrive to an empty wood store. We split and stack a full weekend's worth before every check-in, sourced from a timber yard twelve minutes down the valley.
The price you see is the price you pay. Linen, towels, firewood, and a basic pantry starter kit are included in every booking.
"Clara Mosswood spent eight years as a structural surveyor before buying a collapsed barn at 1,400 metres in autumn 2016. She built the first cabin largely by hand, taught herself timber joinery over two winters, and opened Alpine Refuge in June 2017. Before that she had rented mountain cabins every spare weekend for years, taking notes on what worked and what didn't. She reads old mountaineering journals in the evenings, grows tomatoes badly, and believes that a well-stacked wood store is a form of hospitality. She lives ten minutes from the site with her partner Reuben and their dog, a large and unhelpful hound named Birch."