Washington post spider solitaire3/15/2023 Summer weekends fill up first, but there are generally plenty of midweek spots available through the summer and there are often last-minute cancellations, Dodge said. With the low price of about $30 per person per night (kids are less expensive), a hut trip became an affordable adventure, perfect for family bonding. After all, it’s hard to beat the delectable combination of isolation of this hut and relatively easy seasonal access - huts that require a six-mile ski in during the winter can be driven to on Forest Service roads in the summer. I can’t say what, exactly, persuaded them to come, but I suspect the promise of a fully stocked house set in the middle of rugged western mountains had something to do with it. This was no easy sell Vermont in the summertime is beautiful, and for as long as memory serves, my husband, kids and I (living in Colorado) made the trek back east for family visits with the whole gang - cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Which is why, sometime in early 2015, I proposed that my in-laws, a hardy clan of die-hard Vermonters, venture west for a high-country summer reunion at one of these gorgeous yet affordable huts. “Most people are looking for an opportunity to connect,” he said, “to the land, to the forest, to their friends and family.” And although winter remains the most popular season, according to Ben Dodge, executive director of the association, summer is a sublime time for a hut trip. In 1993, the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association, the nonprofit organization that maintains and takes reservations for the huts, decided to make select huts available in the summer today, 21 of the 34 are open from July through Sept. They were the purview of intrepid backcountry skiers traveling from hut to hut, lapping some of the best Rocky Mountain terrain by day and spending nights tucked away in the high country. Initially, the huts, which were mainly log and included common rooms, bunk rooms, outhouses and the occasional sauna, were open only in winter. It took several decades, but in 1982 the first of the 10th Mountain Division huts was built. One soldier, Fritz Benedict, returned to Aspen from the front lines inspired to emulate Europe’s extensive mountainside huts. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, which trained in Colorado’s high country to prepare for Europe’s rigorous mountainous terrain during World War II. Rather, Fowler-Hilliard is one of 34 huts in Colorado’s storied 10th Mountain Division Hut system, a network of lodges in the valleys and ridges that connect Colorado’s abundant mountains, many of which rise above 14,000 feet. It’s not a posh manse on the outskirts of an opulent mountain town, nor is it a celebrity magnet. But an exclusive mountain retreat this is not. I should say here that “hut” is something of a misnomer: Fowler-Hilliard boasts a light-flooded interior, rooftop solar panels, a wood-burning stove with fuel stacked to Swiss-chalet standards and classic rough-hewn-log furniture. It’s an enviable one, and it complements the cozy, two-story hut. And it is the same view - with wildflowers and cliffs of granite looming above dense pine forests subbing for snow and ice - that will greet me later this summer, in August, when I return to the hut for a high-alpine family reunion. This was the view I savored on a long-ago winter trip when my friends and I were kid-free, avid skiers and always up for an adventure. The stacked mountains stretch deep into the distance, creating a purple and mottled gray mosaic. Through the picture windows in the hut’s enclosed back porch are the Gore Range, home of Vail Mountain Resort, thousands of acres of wilderness and a bevy of wildlife, from black bears to marmots. Look out the front door of the Fowler-Hilliard hut and you’ll see the massive, jagged mountains of Colorado’s Holy Cross Wilderness exploding into the horizon in nearly every direction.
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