We started our trip at the Vail Winter Recreation Area, Cross-Country skiing up a 3 mile road to the Shrine Mountain Inn. This hut is probably the easiest to access of all the huts, and was pretty luxurious. We had a full on kitchen with plumbing and electricity from the grid. We could have taken a hot shower! As is not uncommon, we had the whole hut to ourselves despite it being able to sleep a few more strangers. Overall, it was cool to check out and could be a great introduction to the hut system for others.
After skiing downhill the next day, we headed over to Copper Mountain to hike towards Janet's Hut. Located south west of the resort, we had to skin up the ski slopes for the first mile before going through the back country gate. We might have gotten lost a little bit due to marking made on trees not associated with the hut system. The remainder of the six mile trail was smooth, yet dirty. There was a lot more ground than snow. If we wanted to ski, we'd have to take them on and off again and again. We decided it was best to just strap them onto our packs and walk the rest of the way. This worked well, sans snowshoes, Neil only post-holed and face planted once.
Janet's Hut is close to the ridge, right at the tree line. Probably one of the biggest ones in the whole Hut system. We only had back-cross-country skis, so we didn't attempt to get any good skiing done. Next time we hope to grab some Alpine Touring skis to make down hill a bit easier.
We woke up at Janet's Hut and it was Neil's Birthday! We made a quick trip down the mountain and headed to Leadville (our favorite town) to spend the night in the Blue Room at the Colorado Trail House.
