Last weekend, after returning from our trip to Las Vegas, we packed up our stuff, got a good night's sleep and headed on a hut trip in Colorado's High Country. The name of the hut was Peter Estin Hut and it was a bit of a hike to get to. My friend, Joe, set my expectations correctly when he warned me it'd be a 5 hour death march. It took us 4 hours, 30 minutes and we skied up 2200 vertical feet of switchbacks.
The hut itself was great. It was a lot like The Cabin, but bigger, slept a lot more people and was at 11,200 feet. It had an old fashioned cookstove, heat stove (where we melted snow) and a two-room outhouse.
On Sunday, we hiked up to the top of Charles Peak (12,000') and had a nice (albeit choppy) run down and packed up to hike down.
This was the first hut trip I'd been on since Last Dollar Hut near Telluride in college. It was definitely a physical challenge, but was a lot of fun thanks to good friends, nice views and "summit push" music from Joe's boombox.
Post by Matt Raible.
For more pictures from this adventure, check out my Peter Estin Hut Trip photos on Flickr.