A wonderful break from the winter work-week monotony! We set off for 2 nights at the Fowler-Hilliard hut (Wed-Thurs-Fri) at a fairly early 7am. Since it was mid-February, I70 into the mountains was a typical snow-covered delight.
Fowler-Hilliard hut is located east of Camp Hale, south of Vail/Copper Mountain and north of Leadville. Coming off a very snowy previous week, we knew we were in for a treat! Most of the resorts in the area were looking at 30+inches of fresh snow in the previous 5 days.
Starting just north of the Pando trailhead for the McAllister Gulch trail, it was a ~5mi skin up to the hut. An overcast and slightly snowy start at 10am led us north across the flats of Camp Hale, looking for a snow bridge across the Eagle River. We lucked across a small, non-confidence-inspiring patch of snow that held.
The next 2-3mi were a breeze, with 3″ of fresh snow on some previous skin tracks. The trail was easy to follow with blue diamonds on the trees, using a 4×4 summer road cut through the forest. The last mile or so turned steep, with 30lb packs and fresh snow it was slow going!
The last stretch to the hut runs across open terrain above treeline and through a small but intimidating canyon. When checking on Caltopo, there’s a fair amount of slope above 30 degrees in the canyon, but it looked harmless enough as we worked our way through one by one. Mostly above treeline, the slopes looked bare or fairly consolidated.
The hut was a site for sore eyes after blasting wind, snow and cold for the last section! We settled in for the first night with less-than-stellar hut partners. For those that don’t know, these 10th Mountain huts are available to the public for a small fee. Most of them are rented per person, dorm-style. Typically, you end up with great folks that share your same interests!
Thursday morning we awoke with 3-4″ of fresh snow, and a bit of wind accompanying to fill in the tracks from previous days. The other hut users left around 8am, leaving us with the hut to ourselves! Peace and quiet, and doing all the chores the 9 other folks should have helped with before heading out… like sweeping, restocking snow-melt water, cleaning counters/dishes, etc.
After a calm morning, we headed out for a 4-hour tour to Ptarmigan Hill. When we got there, the cat skiers were out in full-force, with two cats pumping skiers up the slopes at $550/person. Our three glorious thigh-deep runs were free!
Back at the hut, it was still empty. A late lunch and a roaring fire fueled our literary adventures for the afternoon. I started Recursion by Blake Crouch, an amazing sci-fi/thriller, while Andrea started Poor Economics by Abhijidt Banerjee. I’m fairly sure mine was the more enjoyable (but maybe less informative) read!
Around 5pm, 5 new hut users showed up! Lo and behold, they were mostly engineers as well, and even worked at the same company (before retirement) as I do now. We had a wonderful evening conversing with these folks, and hope to see them again at huts in the future!
The next morning we packed up, did our share of hut chores and set off for the van. Being a beautiful bluebird day, we opted to head straight up Resolution Mountain and skied off the top back down McAllister Gulch. Since we are new on skis (we have been splitboarding for years, but decided to switch), we had an interesting trip back down the narrow, steep track. All in all, it went pretty well with minimal crashes! The fresh snow really helped slow us down when needed (and cushion falls..).
Back in the Camp Hale Valley, we located our snow bridge and finished the skin back at the van. A beautiful trip!
-Kyle