Fowler/Hilliard Yurt Trip, 2010

View down to the yurt and "Buzzards" - the open trees across the way.

Ptarmigan is the bald peak just behind the tree'd ridge.

The yearly Frozelap hut trip was last weekend at the newly made Fowler/Hilliard Yurt. It used to be a big hut, but lightning or something else burnt it down to the ground this summer - only the detached outhouse was left standing and in fine condition. The 10th Mountain and a group of volunteers quickly replaced the hut with a big 30 foot diameter yurt with a venting skylight, wood stove, kitchen with 6 propane burners, and bunk beds to sleep 14 people. Two beds doubled as window seats adjacent to the wood stove made it able to fit 16 but that would be a bit tight honestly.

View from the yurt window - Resolution Peak.

I've been lucky enough to be invited on the Frozelap's hut trips for the last three years and the first trip I did was to this place when it was a hut and we were having a better snow year. But any hut trip is better than no hut trip and any day in the backcountry is simply a great day. The crew was all there again. I get to see most of these people only once year, sad as that may sound, and it's on this annual hut trip. The Champ's dad, The Bobber, bailed out when he heard it was a yurt but that's cool cause he's 30ish years our senior and is one of the most hardcore old dudes I know. (He was one of the first to bike the Colorado Trail among many other things.) So we missed him but had a great time nonetheless. The days were filled with skiing and searching for turns, the nights were filled with a lot of laughter. I have video of the round of jokes from the second night, but I think I may have to get written permission to post that video...it's hilariously crass.

The meals - pasta and mexican; the drinks - cans of Ska's Modus Hoperandi, Dales Pale and Ten Fidy, and various other liquids that were in small metal flasks (gotta stay light when you carry it in!); and of course good coffee filled our cups and the air each morning while we looked out at Resolution Peak from the seat by the wood stove. There's not much more peaceful than the feeling of waking up at a hut or yurt, boiling your snowmelt for coffee, and sipping it out on the deck or in front of the wood stove while watching the sun rise over the snowcapped mountains that surround you in every direction. The morning light alone is worth the trip.

Me skinning up the easiest part of the hard way out of the Poop Chutes (thanks to Frozley for doing most of the trail breaking)

This area was rumored to not have received any new snow in 20 days, so it was somewhat hard to find great skiing. But we ended up finding some good turns behind the hut in the north-facing Poop Chutes (behind the outhouses) and on a partially sun-crusted SE facing slope just outside the front door. Buzzards was crusty but still fun and we didn't even try the bowl right out the front door because the sun had wreaked havoc on the shallow snowpack making a pretty hard suncrust on anything facing remotely south (except for some shaded pockets). Once again, I probably annoyed some by my choice of skin track but hey, what d'ya expect?! I know where I'm going, just not always the best (easiest) way to get there! So yes, bushwhacking and post-holing were involved.

I get a bit solemn every time I leave a hut. I try to cram all those sensations into the last hours and minutes of being up there:

Deep breaths of the cold mountain air,

The pure silence of the morning and afternoons,

Looking 360 degrees around you and seeing only peaks and glades yet explored and skied,

The knowing smile from friends that are enjoying the same things and thinking the same thing -

Let's go ski them thar hills, brother.

More pictures and narrative found HERE.