Rifugio Capanna Regina Margherita: An icy 4,554m hike to Europe's highest overnight stay

You can sleep over at this historic mountain refuge straddling the Italy-Switzerland border – but only if you're willing to undertake a days-long, high-altitude icy mountain trek.

I'm roped to four strangers, concentrating on the light cast by my headtorch, as I wend my way through the icy labyrinth of crevasses tearing across the Alpine Lys Glacier. We've been here since 05:00, tugging each other ever higher up the Monte Rosa mountain massif towards the highest altitude building in Europe.

We've just reached a giant mountain bowl filled with clouds of snow. The milky blue twilight fades to the soft glow of dawn. Our guide squints into the distance.

"Up on that ridge" he says, "Do you see it? That's the Margherita refuge." I can't see anything, but the peak he's pointing towards is so sheer sided that I'm convinced he must be mistaken. We press on and, by midday finally arrive at the summit, 4,554m (14,941ft) above sea level. The crystal frosted world of the Punta Gnifetti peak is revealed.

I can see the refuge now. I gasp.

Somewhat resembling a giant tin can, the narrow three-storey metal building is not so much built onto the mountain as it is balanced on the edge of a precipice. On one side is a steeply falling snow slope and on the other, there's just a vertical kilometre of thin air.

This is Rifugio Capanna Regina Margherita; the highest building in Europe. And it's where I'm supposed to sleep tonight.

Sharing the Alpine border between Italy and Switzerland, the Monte Rosa massif contains some of the highest peaks in the Alps, including Monte Rosa itself, which at 4,634m (15,203ft) is behind only Mt Blanc. Punta Gnifetti (also called Signalkuppe) comes in sixth. It's here where an Italian scientific research facility and mountaineers' shelter was constructed and named for the then-queen of Italy, Margherita of Savoy. The queen, famed for her adventurous, athletic nature, insisted on climbing to the refuge herself for its 1893 inauguration and spending the night.

More than a century later, the refuge still supports scientific research while also operating as a mountain hut (rifugio) offering rustic accommodation and thrilling panoramic views. Hiking the massif's eternal winter landscapes has become a popular trek in its own right. Roughly 30,000 hikers summit the peak each year and 4,000 stay overnight, ready like me – and Queen Margherita – to say they've slept in the continent's highest beds.

I opted for a three-day guided hike, which requires crampons and ropes. As a frequent hiker, this didn't faze me. If anything worried me, it was the altitude. The hike to the refuge involves a dramatic gain in altitude, from 1,200 to 4,554m (3937 to 14,941ft) in just two days, so steady acclimatisation is essential.

My journey began a day earlier in the Italian mountain village of Alagna Valsesia, at the slopes of the Monte Rosa massif – the literal end of the paved road before the mountainous ascent. From here, a series of cable-car rides whizzed me uphill to Punta Indren, (3,275m/ 10,745ft) where I met my guide and the four other members of our climbing group.

Since we were all still acclimatising, our first day involved little more than an hour's hiking across rock and ice to where we would spend our first night, the Rifugio Città di Mantova (3,498m/ 11,476ft), a large wooden mountain refuge set just below the start of the Lys Glacier. There was a marked difference in temperature from Alagna Valsesia, but by wrapping up warm from the biting wind, I could enjoy the panoramic terrace with views of the green valley far below.

Despite the stunning setting, I slept fitfully – due, I suspect, to excitement about the coming day's 1,000m (3,281ft) ascent and my body adjusting to the altitude. It was almost a relief when the alarm went off at 04:00 and we crawled out of our beds. We strapped the crampons onto our boots to prevent sliding on the glacial ice and roped ourselves up together – just in case someone slipped into a crevasse.

We set out over the glacier and, after an hour or so of hauling ourselves through a spiderweb of crevasses, cleared a ridge and trudged across the mountain bowl. Behind us, dawn clouds bubbled in the valleys and ahead stood the walls of 4,000m (13,123ft) peaks.

Despite the drama of the Alpine scenery, this middle section of the hike was considerably easier than traversing the steep, ruptured and torn up glacier crossing. Before I knew it, we were starting the final haul up to the refuge.

Although I've never suffered major ill effects from altitude, I do struggle with vertigo. As we zig-zagged sharply up the summit cone, teetering alongside a ridge that fell away into the haze, I began feeling the unmistakable dizzy sensation kicking in and, instead of taking in the view, concentrated on where I was placing my feet. But when I next raised my head, we had made it.

The vertigo eased as I stepped out onto the snowy dome. Fold after fold of mountain peaks sparkling with icy crowns stretched out around me – and the refuge itself. I was exhausted. But would I be able to sleep in what was easily one of the most hair-raising buildings I had ever seen?

Once inside, the refuge felt more like a safe cocoon, and it was easy to forget how precarious our situation was. A dining room took up almost the entirety of the ground floor while the upper two were filled with dormitory-style beds which, the night of my stay, were completely booked. I dropped my backpack onto one of the bunks and headed downstairs to order a frothy bowl of cioccolato caldo (hot chocolate) topped with a dollop of Chantilly cream.

As I savoured the drink, I fell into conversation with Tommaso Bagnati, one of the refuge's four wardens, who told me how the weather conditions can bring the reality of living on the top of Europe into stark focus.

"When there's a big storm the building shakes a bit and you can feel very small," he said. "If there's a thunderstorm it can feel like you're right in the middle of it. All our supplies are delivered by helicopter, so when the weather is very bad and the helicopters can't fly, you can feel a bit cut off from the world."

As I sat down to dinner, a weather front rolled across the mountains. The refuge became blanketed in clouds and sleet splattered against the windows. Sitting next to me at the communal dining table was Chinese YouTuber Jianpeng Cui, who told me that despite the "end of the world" feel to the place, he was pleasantly surprised.

"I thought there'd only be a bed," he said. "No toilet. No kitchen. But it's not at all like that. I can even buy pizza and juice up here!"

I was relieved that altitude sickness had missed me this time. But not everyone was so lucky. Mikhail Morozov, whom I met on his way down from the summit, had suffered headaches and nausea. "Coping with the altitude was the hardest part," he said. "I wasn't acclimatised and you go up very fast. After a couple of hours, the altitude started to hit me hard."

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Life in the Rifugio Capanna Regina Margherita – as with all mountain huts – is very communal. Sleeping at high altitude in a cramped dormitory with seven or eight strangers, sharing two toilets with no shower, means you get far cosier than you perhaps want. But the shared effort of reaching the refuge also creates an easy camaraderie.

"The best part for me has been meeting people from all over the world who have come here to climb the mountain," said Craig Shaw, a New Zealander living in Switzerland. "Seeing all these different nationalities together in this refuge is just phenomenal".

Perhaps real magic of this mountain is not just its ability to support a crazily positioned refuge. It's an ability to bring people together.

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