Castle in the Clouds
Allan Hartley comes across an interesting tale at altitude …
Better known as Becher Haus , but what ’ s in a name ? On the face of it , not a lot but looking behind the scenes there is enough historical intrigue here for a novel and several Net�lix TV series .
My �irst encounter with the Becher Haus was during the late nineteen sixties when having climbed the near-by Wilder Freiger we decided to drop down from the summit , cross the Ubeltal Ferner glacier to the Mueller Hut , then drop down the adjacent Pfaffenneider col , and descend the Fernstube Ferner glacier and join our wives at the Sulzenau Hut . Little did we know that we were being watched ! Once on the Ubeltal Ferner glacier we noticed three guys had left the Becher Haus and were making their way in our direction . Speculating they were just fellow climbers until we noticed they had guns , ah , just hunters , na these guys wore uniforms , not just any uniform but that of the elite Italian Alpini mountain troops complete with Robin Hood style elaborate peaked Eagle feathered hat .
Being shouted at to HALT they approached . Since they had guns we did as we were told . In German they asked what were we doing in Italy . Having not a clue what they were talking about since none of us spoke any German other than Bitte and Bier , I just said English English . The lead guy who spoke a mix of German- English , told us “ you cannot come to Italy this way , you have to go back , go back to Austria the way you came , if you want to climb in Italy you have to go to the Brenner [ pass ]” Yea but we are going to Austria , just going over there waving my arm pointing the way across the glacier to the Mueller Hut and Pffenneider .
The lead soldier tells us sternly , Keine , Nein , Nicht , NO you are Not , you will go back the way I told you . If you don ’ t you will be arrested . The other two soldiers , who remained some distance away , start to raise their guns . OK we turn around and head back to the Wilder Freiger , with the soldiers following at a distance until they feel they have re-secured the Border and return to the Becher Haus and at 3196m high their Castle in the Clouds . Perhaps for them it was another boring day at their of�ice , well at least we gave them something to do !
Years would pass and it was only when I started writing guide-books that I learnt a lot more about the Becher Haus and the so called Castle in the Clouds . As a mountain hut , Becher Haus was one of 72 mountain huts in the Austrian Sud Tyrol that were con�iscated from the Deutscher und Oesterreichisher Alpenverein alpine clubs in 1919
as War Reparations following the end First World War including the annexation of the whole of the South Tyrol Province to Italy . Most of those huts along this new border including the Becher and Mueller Huts would be garrisoned by the Italian military for a very long time fearing that the Austrians would invade and �ight to get their beloved Sud Tyrol back . This tension was only generally eased when Austria joined the European Union in 1995 and most border restriction were removed though the military of both sides kept an un-easy truce on both sides of the border .
For my guidebook Trekking in the Stubai Alps , I / we had visited the area several times , but never to Becher Haus as the military refused to vacate , [ as they still do at the Neuegersdorfer Hut ] the closest we got was to the Mueller Hut , where I learnt of this and various other border huts general destruction , though not through needless willful vandalism but more as a need for survival . The Alpini gone , the hut was generally garrisoned by ordinary mountain troops . Poorly supplied they resorted to the need to survive by gradually burning the furniture to cook meals and stay warm . On our tour in 1986 the Mueller Hut was a semi wreck having been patched up using whatever materials there were , �loor
14 outdoor focus / summer 2023