What is the Wanderlust Mission?
The Wanderlust Mission is a long-term goal I have set for myself: visit all ~153 official Swiss Alpine Club huts in Switzerland. To my knowledge, no one else has ever visited all 153 SAC huts in their lifetime.
This website is a dedicated “logbook” of that mission. For now, it will mainly house the trip logs as I complete them and maybe highlight other interesting hikes I do in the country that may not include a SAC Hut visit, especially any hikes I do where I can provide helpful beta to others.
What are the Swiss Alpine Club Huts?
The Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) is a public organization in Switzerland that maintains 153* huts all around the country mostly in high alpine settings. These huts are open to anyone to visit, enjoy a meal at, or spend a night at. You can read more about the hut system here and find all of the huts here
*The actual number changes as some huts are added, are decommissioned, or are moved.
153?! How long will that take?
Frankly, I have no idea. I expect it will take many years, maybe decades, and I have no set timeline. Life could get in the way and slow things down considerably. Injury could of course throw a wrench into the whole thing for an unknown amount of time. There might be summers with extra free time where I can string a few hut visits together on the same trip. Who knows!
With that said, my high-level mental math is that maybe I can do 8-10 hut visits a year, which would imply a 15-20 year total time to complete.
To give a sense of scale… the average hut approach is 1,000m of elevation gain and with 153 huts that would imply a total of 125,000m gain required to get to all of them. That is equivalent to 14 Mount Everests. It is also ~750km of total hiking required which is equivalent to walking across Switzerland east to west twice.
Are you planning on sleeping overnight in every hut?
No, I am just requiring myself to visit each hut. That can mean staying overnight, having a meal, or simply being within “selfie distance” of the hut.
While spending the night in every hut would be incredible, this would literally double the amount of days it’d require to complete this, and that would mean a guaranteed 153 nights away from home, which does not sound fun. I will try to include my family and friends in as many of the trips as possible.
Are you planning on sleeping overnight in every hut?
No, I am just requiring myself to visit each hut. That can mean staying overnight, having a meal, or simply being within “selfie distance” of the hut.
While spending the night in every hut would be incredible, this would literally double the amount of days it’d require to complete this, and that would mean a guaranteed 153 nights away from home, which does not sound fun. I will try to include my family and friends in as many of the trips as possible.
I’m Derek