Margy's Hut Trip. It just works.

Leaving the hut, morning of the second day

For the second hut trip of this year, I thought I'd write about another aspect of hut trips than the skiing. A hut trip is a lot about the skiing, but it's also a lot about moving into a hut for a few days in the middle of the woods with a group of your friends. People you may see on a daily, weekly, or only a yearly basis because of different jobs, locations, or schedules. But for the hut trip, you're all living in the same space in close quarters. This can be a good or bad thing but in my experience it's always been a positive thing for friendships.

The Pilot, Webster, the Flemish Wonder, so many names, so much style

There is a lot to do when you skin up to the hut. First, at the trailhead, you need to separate all the food for the group into equally weighted parts so it can all get the hut fairly - one person cannot carry it all along with his/her own stuff, but in pieces it's easy. When you arrive at the hut, you need to start a roaring fire to make snow melt for water in order to drink, cook your food, and clean your dishes. One or two start the fires while another one or two go outside get clean snow to melt. A constant job that continues throughout the day as we all know how much snow it takes to make even the smallest amount of water.

When it's dinner time, more or less organically someone chooses it's time to start making the fixings and others follow. First, the chopping of the veggies and meat or meat-like substitutes, the boiling of the water for pasta or rice or beans, and finally the cooking of the food and making sure it's all done and done well. Depending on who is cooking that night, unique twists to the meals will take place, whether it be some red pepper, garlic, and onion mixed in with the pasta sauce or something new for desert. It's always Pasta one night and Mexican the next, but the meals never taste exactly the same.

Greg some turns into the falling light

It's the community that makes the hut trip work. All busy bees, ants with a mission, elves in Santa's workshop, working and chatting just knowing what has to be done and doing it to get those bellies full and thirsts quenched. This trip, I had one of those realizations and stopped to just observe. I imagined myself staring through the window of the hut seeing what all the elves were doing to get stuff done. Not many words spoken on what had to be done, but it was all just as easily gettin done seamlessly. Dishes washed by those that didn't cook, reverse the next night or not. Everyone picks their favorite things to do, or their specialties, and just get er done!

For more pics and narration check out The slideshow of the trip.

Two days after we left, the next group at the hut triggered an avy on the slope we skied back in 2006 in late March. Glad we didn't drop into that this year...

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/2010100219869