Gafadura hut, the hunting lodge that became a refuge

The Gafadura hut is Liechtenstein’s friendly refuge. It sits below the Drei Schwestern, surrounded by meadows and forest, an easy walk from Planken, and its story starts with a prince’s hunting whim. Here’s how to get up there, what it costs and why I like it more as the end of a route than as a destination in itself.

A hunting lodge paid for by the prince

The Alpine Club tells the story in detail on its website. The Gafadura area was a princely hunting ground, rich in game but a long slog from Planken and with nowhere to stay. Ferdinand Beck, the prince’s huntsman and mayor of Planken, talked Johann II into paying for a road and a lodge. The estimate for the road alone was around CHF 27,500, more than the village could afford, so Planken provided the land and the prince provided the money.

The plans, by the court architect Gustav von Neumann, were submitted on 8 July 1926. It wasn’t an easy build, because the road didn’t yet reach the top and the cement had to be carried up by hand; the gravel and the 100 m³ of timber came from the alp itself. It was finished in 1927. During the hunting season it served the prince’s shoots, and outside it Beck was allowed to feed walkers, so even then it was a starting point for the Drei Schwestern.

From private hands to the Alpine Club

In 1954 Prince Franz Josef II sold the lodge to the hunting tenant, Erwin Kocher, for CHF 24,000, after Planken waived its right of first refusal. On 18 December 1967 the Liechtenstein Alpine Club bought it for CHF 100,000, and on 7 July 1968 it opened as a hut. Exactly fifty years later, on 7 July 2018, the club marked the date with a group walk up to the hut. It’s now looking for new tenants from the 2027 season.

The alp has its own past. The Historisches Lexikon says it was cleared by the early Romansh-speaking settlers, that the name comes from cavradüra, a clearing, and that after 1300 it was probably taken over by Walser from Triesenberg. As late as 1872 it still had 15 small dairies, one per family.

How to get up to the Gafadura hut

The usual way is from Planken, the least populated municipality, which route 26 serves from Schaan. The Alpine Club gives about two hours on foot along the track from the village, or an hour and a half if you drive up to where cars are banned by the waterworks. There’s also a route from Schaanwald via the Paulahütte, another from Amerlügen in Austria over the Sarojasattel in about four hours, and the one from Gaflei over the Fürstensteig and the Drei Schwestern, about four and a half hours and only for the sure-footed.

Just above is the Sarojasattel, the 1,628 to 1,650 m pass towards Frastanz. According to the Lexikon, a man from Schaan is said to have guided 2,000 Swiss Confederates over it in 1499, winning them the battle of Frastanz, and in 1799 imperial troops dug a 300 m line of trenches there, traces of which still show in the Lexikon’s own photos.

Sleeping, eating and house rules

Inside there are 14 places in one shared room, washrooms, a dining room and a terrace looking over the Rhine valley. Half board, with a starter, main and pudding, costs CHF 73 if you hold a card from an Alpine club with a reciprocal agreement and CHF 80 if you don’t. You book by email only and pay in cash only, in francs or euros. According to its website, the kitchen serves a lunch menu Monday to Friday until 18:00 and an evening menu Monday to Friday from 18:00 to 20:30, Saturdays until 20:30 and Sundays until 17:30. On a Sunday, don’t turn up late.

Know the rules before you go. You can’t consume your own food and drink, dogs aren’t allowed in the dining room or the dormitory, there’s no winter room and no emergency phone, and rubbish goes back down to the valley. What dogs can and can’t do elsewhere in the country is in Liechtenstein with a dog. Mountain bikers ride up on signed forest tracks from the valley, but not on the footpaths. If you’re after something more alpine, the Pfälzerhütte is at 2,108 m at the other end of the country, and I compare the two in my guide to mountain huts in Liechtenstein.