We snagged two open spots at the Eiseman Hut for a Thursday and Friday night in mid-January. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we headed out around 6:30am, so we could hopefully be at the trailhead and skinning by 9am. With blue skies and clear roads, we made it to Vail in no time. Unfortunately, the parking situation would be much more involved than we anticipated…
The official trailhead as shown on the 10th Mountain Division’s website for Spraddle Creek is the parking lot right off I70 on Spraddle Creek Road. It’s a super small parking lot and was completely full when we got there. Also, as we were later informed by a local, cars can’t park overnight in that lot, and all of the vehicles parked there had probably been ticketed. Yikes.
We kept going up Spraddle Creek road with the hopes that we would make it to the upper parking lot area, where you can park overnight. The last 400 feet to the trailhead is a very steep dirt road. It is plowed but not frequently, so it’s basically an ice luge if it’s been a few days since the last snow. In our Honda Fit with snow tires, it took multiple tries with increasing speed until we were able to finally make it to the last hump before the parking lot. At that point we ended up pushing the Fit the last couple of feet uphill with the help of another hut visitor!
We started the 7 mile skin in to the hut at around 10am. I made huge gourmet sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies to keep us going for the long slog to the hut. Even with the yummy food and plenty of water – it was a really hard day. About three miles or so into the skin, I felt blisters starting to form on the inside of my heels and they quickly began problematic. Kyle was super sore from lifting the day before, so we were both having a rough go.
We eventually made it to the hut around 3pm. There were a few people there already (about 6 others) when we arrived and we ended up with the double bed in the sleeping area. Eiseman isn’t like other 10th Mountain Division Huts; there is no loft bedroom space and everything is on one floor. The main area had AMAZING views looking southwest toward Vail. They definitely made the skin in worth it. Feeling pretty wrecked from the skin-in, we took it easy that night and just enjoyed our steak dinner before going to bed at around 7pm. We were THAT exhausted.
The following day we took it easy with a late breakfast and some morning reading. I was reading Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson at the time, so I was throughly enjoying myself. I also appreciated the down time since the blisters on my heels were the size of a nickel and completely torn open. With lots of tape and bandaids, we decided to head right outside the hut for some tree skiing. Even though we only did one run from the hut, it was a blast.
After lunch, I crashed in the hut for more reading while Kyle joined the rest of the crew for another round of skiing outside the front of the hut. Once everyone returned back to the hut, we had a couple hours of chilling together and talking before we made some pesto pasta for dinner. Now that we had recharged from the easy skiing day and lots of food, we stayed up playing games with the rest of the hut crew.
Our final morning in the hut, we finished off the last of the maple syrup, butter, and pancake mix. It was the ultimate breakfast for the 7 mile skin out! We were the first ones to leave the hut at 9am. We debated about taking the alternative route out from Eisemen (Red Sandstone) since we were worried that the steep sections of the skin out on Spraddle Creek would be too much for us as ski newbies. Our worries turned out to be unwarranted, and the skin out on Spraddle Creek had the perfect amount of snow. It was just enough snow to not be slog for the flat sections and slow us down on the steep, narrow sections.
We made it back to the Fit around 12:30 with sandwiches to hold us over for the drive back to Denver. It was a hard hut trip but so worth it!
-Andrea