Earlier this week I spent two nights at the Fowler-Hilliard Hut, a 10th Mountain Division Hut Association cabin located about six miles west of Vail Pass (Locator Map). Fowler-Hilliard was built in 1988 and was named after Ann Fowler and Ed Hilliard, avid mountaineers tragically killed in a climbing accident on North Maroon Peak near Aspen. The original cabin burned down (likely due to a lightning strike) in the fall of 2009 and was rebuilt in the summer of 2010.
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| The new Fowler-Hilliard Hut |
10th Mountain manages 30 backcountry huts in the Colorado Rockies, mostly in the triangle between Vail, Leadville, and Aspen. The huts are popular in the summer and even more so in the winter (winter weekends are typically booked a year in advance).
I joined a group of 11 Colorado Mountain Club members from the Aspen Group which had secured the reservation last year. We departed the Pando Trailhead (9,200 ft) on Tuesday morning, crossed the Eagle River via a rapidly dissapearing snowbridge, and climbed up McAllister Gulch until we reached treeline. We then traversed NE then N to Resolution Saddle (11,700 ft) then E through Resolution Narrows before reaching the hut in time for a happy hour beer on the deck.
The hut sits at treeline at 11,500 feet and features views of high peaks in all directions. The hut is gorgeous, with a stone and metal exterior, beds for 16, photovoltaic lights, a spacious kitchen with propane cooktops and a wood oven, a comfortable lounge area with a wood stove for heat, and a spectacular deck on the sunny south side of the hut overlooking Resolution Bowl. It's one of the best "base skiing" huts in the entire system, with several options right out the front door.
We planned group meals for breakfast and dinner (we were on our own for lunch, snacks, and booze). The first night we ate chips and salsa and guacamole as an appetizer, then pasta with a spicy curry-style sauce for dinner, then brownies with snow ice cream for dessert. This was the first time I've had snow ice cream, and it was awesome. It's also the perfect winter hut trip dessert. Just mix fresh Colorado snow, milk or heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla extract, then eat!
On Wednesday morning we ate a communal french toast breakfast then split into smaller groups to recreate for the day. A few stayed at the hut to relax and take in the views, most toured E towards Ptarmigan Hill, and Helen and I tried to find good turns. The weather had been warm and sunny with no new snow for over a week, so my expectations were very low. I figured we could take a run down Resolution Bowl (south facing, right in front of the hut) and if it sucked we could poke around in Wearyman Glades (north facing, right in back of the hut). We wound up doing both, and they were both quite good.
Resolution Bowl had gotten so much sun over the past week that it skied just like spring - a March corn harvest! Helen and I skied two laps of about 750 feet each before the lower part of the bowl got too soft. At the bottom of our second run we decided to climb to the summit of Resolution Mountain (11,905 ft) to take in the views and hopefully find some more skiable snow. We found both. It was another bluebird day, so we could see the Gore Range to the north, the Mosquito Range to the east, and the Sawatch Range to the west, with Notch Mountain and Mount of the Holy Cross (14,005 ft) directly across the valley in that direction. The ski from the summit was fantastic, and then it was time for another beer.
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| Mount of the Holy Cross (center right) and Notch Mountain |
After a break for lunch, we decided to check out Wearyman Glades. I hoped the north aspect (the shady side of a mountain in winter at mid-latitudes in the northern hemisphere) and the trees protected the snow from the sun, but again I had low expectations. We clicked in, poled a few yards to the first pitch, and were surprised again by good, soft snow. The trees (Englemann Spruce and Subalpine Fir?) were spaced perfectly for skiing. Helen and I skied another three laps of about 500 feet each before heading home for the day. We saw numerous snowshoe hare tracks and possibly Canadian lynx tracks as well (which makes sense because lynx eat almost nothing but snowshoe hares). The last Canadian lynx in Colorado was killed around 1973, but the Colorado Division of Wildlife began an ambitious restoration program and now more than 200 lynx roam portions of the state, including the area we were skiing. I'm glad to hear they are beginning to thrive once again.
Chicken fajitas for dinner, the remainder of the beer and wine (it'd be foolish to not finish it and have to carry it back down...), good conversation, a roaring fire, and bed rounded out the night.
Thursday morning we awoke to another beautiful sunrise, cooked and ate breakfast, packed, cleaned up, and headed for the trucks. Helen and I gave the rest of the group a head start and skied another lap in the trees, then skied the steep, slick trail five miles back to the trailhead.
It was a great way to spend a few "work" days.
