Pfälzerhütte, the stone hut on the Bettlerjoch

The Pfälzerhütte is Liechtenstein’s proper mountain hut. It stands alone on a saddle at 2,108 m, among alpine meadows and rock, built from the mountain’s own stone, and from its door you can climb the summit where three countries meet. If you’re spending one night in the country’s mountains, for me this is the place.

Where it is and how it got its name

The hut sits on the Bettlerjoch, a border pass at 2,108 m between the Augstenberg and the Naafkopf, in Schaan’s territory, which drops down to the Nenzinger Himmel in Austria’s Vorarlberg. The tourist board places it at the very top of the Naaf valley on the Austrian frontier. The pass takes its name, according to the Historisches Lexikon, from the «Schmalzbettler», the butter beggars who, as legend and probably reality have it, crossed over from Austria to ask for handouts on Liechtenstein’s alps. Smugglers used it too.

The hut’s own name has a different story. It was built in 1927-1928 by nine sections of the German and Austrian Alpine Club grouped as the Verband der Pfälzischen Sektionen, the Palatinate sections, after the Gritsch alp cooperative gave them the land. The architect Ernst Sommerlad won the competition, the build took 113 days and cost over CHF 93,000, and it opened on 5 August 1928, named the Pfälzerhütte in their honour.

A hut that survived the war

What happened next is one of the oddest stories I’ve read about an Alpine hut. Eleven years after it opened, the Second World War broke out and, according to the Liechtenstein Alpine Club, the hut stood empty from 1939, broken into and looted several times. After the war it got caught up in Switzerland’s freeze on German assets. In 1946 the government asked the Liechtenstein club to take it over, and after a long process it bought it under a contract dated 28 April 1950 for CHF 8,000. It reopened that same year after repairs. In 1963 the club signed an agreement with the Palatinate sections to keep the name.

Why I like the building

The Lexikon calls it a fine example of modern Alpine architecture expressed in archaic forms and local materials, in the tradition of the German architect Heinrich Tessenow. The outer walls are rubble masonry from stone blasted on site and hand-dressed, and it has terraces facing south and west. The annex, called Adler, was added in 1935. To me it sits in the landscape as if it had always been there, which is the hardest thing to pull off with a mountain hut.

How to get to the Pfälzerhütte

The Alpine Club gives three routes from Liechtenstein, all white-red-white mountain paths. From Malbun over the Sareiserhöhi, the Princess Gina Trail and the 2,359 m Augstenberg in about three hours, which you can shorten with the Sareis chairlift when it’s running. From Malbun via the Vaduzer Täli, the Tälihöhi and the Gritsch alp in about two. And from Steg up the Samina valley and the Valüna in two to three. From Austria, it’s about two hours up from the Nenzinger Himmel.

A word on the chairlift. Its summer season ends on 18 October 2026 and Bergbahnen Malbun posts its live status, so I wouldn’t count on it without checking on the day.

Sleeping, paying and what’s nearby

Half board includes a vegetarian three-course dinner and a breakfast buffet, and costs CHF 68 for members of Alpine clubs with reciprocal rights, CHF 75 for everyone else and CHF 40 for children up to 12. It’s cash only, and euros are taken at the day’s rate. You book through the online system linked from the Alpine Club’s site, and neither the club nor the tourist board publishes the 2026 season dates. In winter the hut closes and the Adlerhorst stays open, with 21 places at CHF 20, a compost toilet outside since October 2025 and no emergency phone. The club also warned in 2026 that the solar lighting wasn’t working properly, so pack a head torch.

From the door, the obvious outing is the Naafkopf, 2,570 m, the tripoint with Switzerland and Austria, about two hours there and back, with a small crag along the way. Stronger walkers carry on along the Liechtensteiner Höhenweg towards the Mannheimer Hütte or the Schesaplana. For how it stacks up against the others, see Liechtenstein’s mountain huts.