After managing the uncertainty and financial disruption of the coronavirus pandemic, the Summit Huts Association on Saturday, Oct. 9, will host its traditional Backcountry Ball fundraiser for the first time since 2019. Summit Huts Association.
Europe is known for its network of high-alpine huts, where you hike from lodge to lodge and eat dishes like goulash and spaetzle before retiring for the night in plush accommodations and then hiking on to the next hut the following day. But you don’t have to leave the country for a taste of that experience.
“The U.S. is on the verge of embracing what huts are all about,” says Sam Demas, author of the forthcoming guidebook
Hut to Hut USA: The Complete Guide for Hikers, Bikers, and Skiers, which will be published in October. “There’s a big appetite for hut travel in the U.S., and we’re seeing more communities develop new systems.”
Dec 22, 2020, 6:00 am 7.7K Shares
Opus Hut, which is at 11,600 feet above Silverton, is the closest you’re going to get to a full-service refuge in the Pyrenees. (Brett Schrenkengost, provided by Opus Hut)
Skiers get all the love with hut trips. Users are quick to share which shelters have the best access to crazy lines and the best backcountry terrain. Or which huts you can link together into a long ski tour.
But Colorado has a lot of huts and shelters reachable by incredible and safe snowshoe hikes, with adjacent trails for shoeing, nearby slopes for world-class sledding, or even a sauna to relax in without being bombarded with a crowd of boozed-up, smelly ski bums (if that’s not your vibe).
Kirsten Dobroth/Aspen Public Radio News
The entire outdoor industry has been impacted by the pandemic, and the regional backcountry hut system is no exception. The 10th Mountain Division Hut Association closed its huts last March and cancelled remaining reservations for the winter during the original spate of coronavirus lockdowns. They reopened to the public this summer, and have been taking reservations for the current winter season, albeit with new restrictions in accordance with local health protocols.
“It was the right thing to do,” said 10th Mountain Division Hut Association Executive Director Ben Dodge of the March closures. “We learned a few things between then and when we decided to open the huts for summer.”