An Alpine hut is a building located in the mountains intended to provide food and shelter to mountaineers and climbers. Alpine huts are usually operated by a section of an Alpine Club. Most Alpine huts are tended to by Alpine Club personell throughout the mountaineering season, who prepare meals and drinks for mountaineers, similar to a restaurant, but usually with a limited selection, as it is not always easy to transport the food to the hut. Furthermore, Alpine huts provide simple sleeping berths. Any mountaineer is allowed to access Alpine huts, but members of an Alpine Club usually get a discount. Some huts in more remote areas have no personell, but mountaineers are allowed to access them.

As there is a lot of mountaineering activity in the Alps, there is a large number of huts along the mountaineering paths. One cannot necessarily count on finding a similarly dense network of paths and huts in other mountain ranges.