Aspen Peak - Niche Media - Aspen living at its peak
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/417540
photography by c2 photography from left: Outside the McNamara Hut, pails of snow wait to be melted for drinking and cooking water; to reach the huts in the winter, visitors must snowshoe or "skin" across the backcountry. EntriEs [in guEst books] illustratE somE of thE magic that happEns whEn pEoplE can gEt away from thE chaos of thE rEal world and sEttlE down in naturE. crackling fire. The stove serves a double purpose, melting pails of snow for drinking and cooking—after all, there's no running water. (There's a strict "no dogs" policy in the system to avoid contaminated snow-turned- drinking water.) Much like camping, routine daily activities serve as a form of entertainment: People spend time splitting logs that are stored on-site, drying out damp clothes from the hike in, shoveling snow from the walkway to the outhouse, and chopping vegetables for the commu- nal dinner. Standard items like cast-iron stoves and tea-kettles are kept in the cabins, but food, f lashlights, and items such as board games have to be carried in. After dinner is made on the small gas-powered stove, everyone settles in for an evening of candlelit card games and reading through decades of guest books. Entries detail everything from topless 60th birthday parties to stoic solo trips and pencil sketch drawings, each illustrating some of the magic that happens when people can get away from the chaos of the real world and settle down in nature without distractions. It turns out there's a large demand for this kind of getaway. The huts are booked on a lottery reserva- tion system that starts nearly nine months in advance of the season. Last year more than 1,000 parties and individuals submitted applications for overnight bookings from Thanksgiving through Apr il, a nd 87 percent were accepted (t he ot her 13 percent's desired dates had a lready been f illed). Hut capacit y ra nges from t hree to 20 people, a nd spot s a re booked on a per-person basis, so people often end up ma k ing new fr iends out in t he middle of nowhere. The 10th Mountain Division Hut Association manages an additional 12 huts from Aspen to Winter Park, called the Summit Huts, Grand Huts, and Braun & Friends Huts. But the 20 huts between Aspen and Vail are specifically named to honor the ski troopers who trained at Camp Hale, near Leadville, and fought in the harsh climate of the Italian Alps in World War II. More than 11,000 soldiers were stationed there, learning the mountaineer- ing skills necessary to fight in Europe's unforgiving alpine landscape. Nearly 1,000 died and another 4,500 were wounded in combat. When the 10th Mountain Division was demobilized in 1945 — 69 years ago—several of the living soldiers returned to the United States with a passion for skiing. These veterans, Fred Iselin, Friedl Pfeifer, and Fritz Benedict among them, were inf luen- tial in developing the ski industry in the Northeast and Colorado. Some of those who didn't make it back were eventually honored by family and friends through the 10th Mountain Division hut system, where continuEd on pagE 48 LIVING THE LIFE 46 aspenpeak-magazine.com