How to read a shelter

Every shelter page is built from the same fields. Knowing what they promise — and what they don't — is the difference between a planned night and an improvised one.

Type tells you the shape of the roof. An unguarded shelter is enclosed and free. A bivouac box is a sealed alpine capsule, often with bunks and blankets. A lean-to has three walls: enough to sit out weather, not enough to be warm. An emergency shelter is rescue infrastructure — never plan a night there. A guarded hut is staffed and usually needs booking, which is the opposite of what the rest of this map is for.

The survival fields — stove, water nearby, sleeping platform, winter-ready — have three states, not two. Yes, no, and unknown. Unknown means nobody has recorded it, and we show it as unknown rather than guessing. It is not a soft yes. If water says unknown, carry water.

Status and last-verified travel together. A shelter marked open in October and last verified in June is a June fact, not an October one. Elevation and coordinates come from the import and are usually solid; where a coordinate looks wrong, it is worth a report.

Everything on the page comes from OpenStreetMap, a curated import, or someone who slept there. None of it is a promise. The mountain does not read our database.