Winter Adventures Part 3: Hut Trip

***OK, so this post is unacceptably late -- you've been holding your breath since I announced it, right? -- but life got in the way.  But, hey!  It's kinda winter here, so talking about snow is still appropriate, right?***

In the previous post in this three-part series, I told the story of Brennan's and my ice climbing adventures -- climbing up near-vertical walls of ice using ice axes and crampons that didn't take much effort to provide a solid hold.

In Part 1, I told of how Brennan and I tried backcountry skiing -- uphill climbing/hiking on skis, followed by downhills on untested and ungroomed slopes.  We were hoping to backcountry ski on a hut trip with several guys from our church, but neither of us were quite prepared for that much adventure!  So we opted to snowshoe instead.

By this time, if you're not from around here, you may be wondering what a "hut trip" is!  In the Rocky Mountains, there are several cabins that aren't road-accessible in wintertime.  The only way to get there is to hike in through the snowy wilderness.  On this trip, we went to Francie's Cabin.  It's located only about 5 miles south of Breckenridge, and about 2-3 miles from the trailhead, so it was an easy hike up.

We arrived at the cabin around lunchtime.  After some chow and a little rest, a few of us decided to get busy exploring.  We had heard there was an alpine lake not far from the cabin, so several of us geared up and headed out in search of it.  How cool would that be to see a lake in the middle of this snow everywhere?  The cabin was located at the base of a valley, with mountains surrounding the valley on three sides.  As we hiked up the valley toward the peak at the end, we could see a bowl at the peak's base as we approached.  We assumed this was the lake.

The valley hemmed in by mountains

You can see the bowl at the base of the mountain in front of us.

We ran across this little guy as we were exploring!

No such luck, though.  There was definitely a large bowl, but no lake.  Instead of a lake, we did find the remnants of a miner's cabin.  (It turns out, that really was the lake, just frozen and snowed over.  Call me a newbie at winter trekking!)

So, having not found (we thought) that which we sought, we looked for more adventure and found a trail heading up one of the ridges toward the peak at the end of the valley.  We knew we wouldn't summit the peak that afternoon, but we thought we might get some nice views.

The picture from the trail we climbed up to.  You can see the steep slope and the horrible terrain (and the frozen lake below).

It was definitely an adventure!  The trail we saw along the ridge didn't seem to connect to the valley floor, so we had to just hike straight up the base of the ridge to get to it.  Turns out it was farther than it looked, and the terrain was tough.  In places there was no snow, just exposed rock.  Between the rocks was scree -- gravel-sized rock chips that just lay on top of the steep-sloped ridge.  Climbing up was tough!  Imagine trying to climb up the side of a mountain that moves with large boats on your feet!  When we finally did reach the trail, we ditched our snowshoes and headed up.  In some places, the trail was completely snowed over.  Aware that nature is not a theme park, we looked up the side of the ridge to check the snow up-slope, and there didn't seem to be that much that would be an avalanche danger, so we pressed on.  Still, the snow was wet and over knee-deep in some places, and progress was slow.  We thought we might make it to the corner of this rectangular mountain wall that surrounded the valley and see what lay beyond, but the sun started sinking before we made it that far, and we didn't want to be finding our way back to the cabin in the dark.

Once we reached the place we left our snowshoes, we were left with a decision:  How best to get back down the side of the ridge?  As we discussed it, there seemed to be three options:  1)  Back down the way we came -- but it was steep and heading down the scree might be dangerous; 2)  We could travel farther down the trail to a place where there was snow all the way down the ridge and switchback our way down the ridge to the valley floor; 3) Brennan jokingly said we could just butt-sled all the way down.  I quickly dismissed that option.  Brennan did not.  Eddie, my partner, seemed willing to try it, but I was afraid we would tumble, get covered with snow, and get cold.  Thus, Eddie and I decided to switchback our way down the ridge.  After a while, we seemed to not be making progress, and we were having trouble keeping good footing on the steep, snow-covered ridge.  Eddie asked again:  What do you think about butt-sledding?  I finally relented.  I took my snowshoes off, sat down, and kicked off, using my snowshoes held in my hands to steer.  And it was fun!  It was thrilling!  I was a kid again!

Upon returning to the cabin and bragging about all of our exploits, our leader informed us that we plowed through prime avalanche terrain -- without the proper equipment.  Oops!  Guess we've got more to learn about winter outdoor adventuring!  Note to self:  Sign up for avalanche safety class!

Our fajita feast that evening could not have been better after the workout we had that afternoon.  We sat around the wood-burning stove and swapped stories, the fellowship of fellow outdoor enthusiasts completing the adventure.

The next day, we headed out for another half-day adventure, this time exploring the opposite ridge before heading home with our stories.  My first non-skiing winter adventure had me hooked!  Can't wait for this year's adventure at Janet's Cabin!