Badener Hütte below the Krystalwand – Photos by Georg Kaiser

Hut Fund Report

Badener Hütte

by Janet Britnell, Hut Fund Representative

The Badener Hütte (2608m) is a Category I hut, built in 1911 high in the eastern Venediger Gruppe, in the Hohe Tauern, belonging to Sektion Baden bei Wien with about 1600 members. The hut sits on the NE side of the Frosnitzkees and SE below the Kristallwand (3310m). It is a key staging point on the Venediger Höhenweg between the Neue Prager Hütte and the Bonn Matreier-Hütte. Seven notable peaks can be climbed from the hut, five over 3000m including the Groβvenediger (3674m).

Being so high in the mountains the hut is only tenanted for 11 weeks each year, from the beginning of July to mid-September. Most visitors stay overnight since it takes at least four hours to walk there from the Bonn-Matreier-Hütte or from the Neue Prager Hütte. The shortest route from the valley, from Gruben (1164m), on the Felbertauernstraβe, via the Frosnitztal, takes about five hours; from Matraier Tauernhaus (1152m) via Innergschlöß and the Löbbentörl (2770m), 6-7hours.

A small artificial lake to the NW of the hut collects surface water used both to power a small hydro-electric plant and supply water to the hut. Before Summer 2021 only the drinking water was treated with UV, but in 2019 the health and safety inspectors insisted that all the water used in the hut must be UV-treated, and an activated charcoal filter installed, for water sterilization. Members of the section carried out the drinking water improvements in June 2021 and also replaced worn out solar thermal panels needed for the supply of warm water, projects costing €3K and €10K respectively.

Another problem for high huts is the safe disposal of human waste without changing the local environment. Kitchen waste flows into a grease trap, and from there it joins the outflows from the washing machine, the WCs and the washrooms in a ‘solids separator’ housed in a small wooden hut on the hillside behind the main hut, where the ‘brown’ and the ‘grey/white’ waste are separated. The ‘brown’ solid waste is then ferried by wheelbarrow to the top step of a ‘stepped composter’. The next step down contains last year’s ‘brown’ waste and so on. After 4 winters, the bottom step contains about 200litres of humus that is taken by helicopter to the sewage plant in Matrei.

Until September 2022, the ‘grey/white’ liquid waste was piped further down the hillside to a small biological filter in a cylindrical chamber, but the filter kept being clogged by the residual sludge in the liquid waste. Nevertheless, there had never been any evidence of pollution from the outflow in the stream below the hut. However, the authorities insisted that the section should install a full-scale biological treatment plant by hacking out a large area of rock to make a filtration bed, but such a system needs warmth, and time, to start functioning. Due to the high altitude and aspect of the hillside behind the hut and the short season, the section doubted such a system would work, it would probably just despoil the hillside. Instead, they were keen to try a more innovative method that could be a model for other high huts.

Essentially, their plan for cleaning up the ‘grey/white’ liquid waste involves introducing several steps to remove as many impurities and as much particulate matter as possible before it reaches the small biological filter chamber which now also houses a ‘shaking distributor’. From here the biologically cleaned liquid flows into a ‘trickling soil filter’: a shallow saucer, 2 metres in diameter, and thence into the rock. When the liquid waste leaves the ’solids separator’, it flows into a ‘lamellar separator’ to remove impurities and send concentrated fine sludge to a ‘solar sludge drier’ from which dried sludge is transferred to the composter. The remaining liquid then flows to the biological filter chamber.

The Federal authorities finally approved the plan and the section installed Phase 1 in September 2022, total cost €100K. If the section can prove the system works, the government will refund €30K. Tirol has promised a further €30K; they should get €24K from the Alpenverein, leaving them to find €16K plus the €30K that will not be refunded by the government until Autumn 2023 at the earliest. The section hope that the outflow will be so clean that Phase 2 will not be needed but if it is, that will cost at least another €87K.

The AAC(UK) Board has agreed to make a Hut Fund donation of €10K to Sektion Baden bei Wien towards the cost of Phase 1 of this innovative, environmentally friendly project.

Our Hut Fund donations are very much appreciated by the sections receiving them. Thank you for supporting the fund, and please keep the donations coming in.

Restoring the site behind the hut showing stepped composter

Replacing old solar panels

Return to the top of this page, or to the complete Index, or to this section's Index.