Questions

No. There is no online booking system, no calendar widget, no basket and no payment page anywhere on this site. Reservations are made by written correspondence with the lodge desk: you write, we reply with genuine availability and a description of the rooms that fit, and the arrangement is confirmed in writing. Nothing is charged until you arrive.

We publish no rates, packages, offers or discounts here, and nobody from the lodge will ever ask you for card details by email.

Residences are ready at 15:00 and we ask you to leave by 11:00. If you arrive on the morning train, bring your bags to the porch, leave them with the desk and use the building — the reading room, the boot room and the larder counter from midday are all yours. Many guests walk the orchard loop before their room is even touched.

Late arrival is never a problem. The night porter is on duty until six, and if you telephone from the halt after 22:00 there will be soup and bread waiting.

Tell the desk how you sleep and we will answer properly. In short: Ridge rooms for early risers and mountain views with no screen; Valley rooms for longer stays, families and evening light; Cabinet suites if you need a genuine second room to read or work in; Attic apartments for the quietest bed in the building, if you can manage a steep private stair.

If you expect to come back from the quarter after 23:00, ask for the west end and the returning-guest stair. Full detail is on the residences page.

Yes, and particularly in the school holidays. Two Valley rooms connect through a lockable door, children eat at 17:45 from the same kitchen, the thermal halls have family hours from nine until noon, and the toboggan run is lit twice a week. The boot room lends child-sized snowshoes.

The gaming salon is a detached annexe with photographic identification checked at every entry and no admittance for minors under any circumstances. There is no gaming equipment, screen or advertising anywhere in the main building, so children staying here simply never encounter it.

It is one panelled room across the courtyard, open 19:00 to 01:00 and closed on Mondays, restricted to adults of 18 or the local legal age — whichever is higher. A passport or national identity card is checked at the door every time you enter; a room number is not identification. Smart dress after seven, telephones left at the counter, no photography inside.

Visiting is entirely optional and never suggested to you: it is not mentioned at check-in and there are no leaflets in the rooms. Outcomes at a table cannot be predicted and we make no claims about winning of any kind. There is no wagering, staking or play offered on this website. See Nights and Responsible play.

Only once you are here. Slots are two hours, capacity is twenty-two bathers, and they are taken at the desk in person the day before — usually at breakfast. The 10:30 slot is the one to ask for, because that is when light from the high window reaches the upper basin.

Afternoons between one and five are quiet enough that walking in almost always works.

Yes. Everyone sits at 18:30 and eats four courses written at four in the afternoon, once the valley delivery has arrived. There is no choice of main course because the farms decide what we cook. Tell the desk about allergies, intolerances or dietary requirements by 15:00 and the kitchen will cook you something equally considered rather than improvising a plate of vegetables.

If you would rather not dress or sit down at all, the larder counter runs midday to five and the reading room bar serves until 23:30.

Partly, and we would rather be precise than reassuring. A lift serves floors one to three. Four residences have step-free access from the porch with 86 cm doorways and grab rails, and one has a wheel-in shower. The table, reading room and larder counter are all level from the porch. The thermal halls are reached by their own stair but also by the west lift, and the main basin has a chair hoist.

The Attic apartments are stair-only. The footpath to the quarter descends forty metres on a gritted but uneven surface; the funicular is the step-free alternative in both directions. The salon annexe is step-free across the courtyard. Write to the desk with your specific requirements and you will get a specific answer.

Yes, in seven ground and first-floor Valley rooms. A bed, bowls and a towel are provided, and the porter keeps a supply of paw balm for gritted paths. Dogs are welcome in the reading room and on the terrace but not at the table, not in the thermal halls and not in the salon annexe.

Two of the six walking routes are unsuitable for dogs in summer because of grazing stock and guardian dogs; the route book says which.

The road up to the lodge is kept open by the valley authority and is very rarely a problem, though winter tyres are legally required from 1 November to 15 April and chains are wise above the seventh hairpin. The section above us to the summit closes when the avalanche bulletin reaches level four, which happens perhaps eight to twelve days a season.

The narrow-gauge railway runs regardless. If the forecast looks difficult, come by train and let us collect you from the halt.

There is a wired connection at every desk and wireless throughout the main building and courtyard, on a fibre line to the valley. It is genuinely fast enough for video calls. The Cabinet suites, with their separate reading alcoves, are what guests working for a week ask for.

The gorge path and the upper routes have no signal at all, and we have chosen not to fix that.

We lend equipment, mark trails, print maps and tell you the truth about conditions. We do not sell tours, run a programme or take a commission from anyone in the quarter. If you want a mountain guide for the border ridge, the desk will give you the names of two independent guides and you arrange it directly with them.

Twice a month a valley trio plays in the reading room after dinner. That is the extent of our entertainment programme, and it is free.

Strict, on all residence floors between 22:30 and 07:30. The building is timber and sound travels; a conversation in a corridor at one in the morning wakes four rooms. Guests returning late are asked to use the west door and the felt-lined returning-guest stair, and the night porter will quietly remind anyone who forgets.

The reading room stays open until half past midnight for anyone who wants to keep talking — that is what it is for.

Write to the desk as early as you can. Because we hold reservations by correspondence rather than by card, changing dates is usually a matter of one email. The terms that apply to your stay are the ones stated in your written confirmation, not a standard policy published on a web page — and they will be plain language.

If weather closes the railway on your travel day, we will not treat that as a cancellation. The mountain is nobody’s fault.