Now imagine skiing with your favorite group then not going home! Instead, you’ll be cooking a meal together, sharing stories around a communal table, sipping on a shared flask of whiskey, then getting up the next morning to do it all over again, minus the long approach. Have we died and gone to heaven? No, we are on a hut trip!
Across the country, there are hundreds (likely thousands) of publicly accessible huts. Many charge a fee per person, per night, while some are available only when you rent all 6-12 beds for your own private group retreat. In Colorado, while some are available year-round, the majority are only for use in the winter, mostly due to the availability of water when there’s no snow to melt in these higher elevation locations.
The premise is an easy one: gather your favorite adventure partners together, split the resources needed to survive a couple of nights in the high alpine, fill your backpack with supplies, and make the often 3-10 mile trek to any one of the more beautiful places in the area. Once you arrive, unpack your bag of food and sleeping gear, then head out for some ski touring in the surrounding zone. The huts are often equipped with foam mattresses and pillows, as well as cookware, a woodstove and plenty of firewood. Your group will bring whatever nutrition you’ll need (both solid and liquid, of course), along with the gear you’ll need for ski touring, and you’ll spend between one and several nights away from it all. Between ski runs near the hut, you’ll be making memories that will last a lifetime. Despite the recent surge in popularity of winter hut trips, you’ll find that availability is still possible throughout the winter and even more in the spring as many skiers transition to other, warmer endeavors.
