Bill, Sue and I met in Frisco on a snowy day-after-Christmas morning. The roads were snow covered and slick in spots and we didn’t exceed 40 mph on the drive to Leadville. Luckily, we didn’t have any problems reaching the Sugarloaf dam of Turquoise Lake and met Craig waiting for us.
The four of us geared up and crossed the blustery dam, racing for the shelter of the trees. Once we got moving and warmed up the weather didn’t seem to bad.
We were following some ski tracks through the 4+ inches of new snow so we didn’t have to break much trail on the way.
We made a few stops along the way to the summer trailhead at the far end of the lake. Other than a couple snowmobiles, we didn’t see any other people until we were caught by Alex and his mom who had left after us but we obviously moving quicker.
Craig and I mostly traded positions at the front of the group, but there wasn’t much real trail breaking to do since a couple was just ahead of us.
The trail was marked with the forest service’s blue diamonds on the trees we passed by and we concentrated on enjoying the day.
Around the time we hit the meadows we experienced 5 minutes of sun and blue skies. I was a little worried, since I recalled the forecast warning that temperatures would drop 10-15 degrees once the snow stopped.
After the meadows we worked up some steep switchbacks and I eventually caught up with John and Linda. They volunteer to visit the Skinner Hut and check in on it several times a year and knew the trail very well. They were also exhausted after breaking trail the whole way from the dam. I took over trail breaking duties for a ways as John pointed me in the right direction (they even knew where all the blue diamonds were when they were plastered in snow).
Craig soon caught up too and by now I was feeling the effort and gladly relented the job of breaking trail to him.
Once we worked up to the ridge top we only had a short distance to traverse to the hut. I was already imaging stepping inside a nice pre-warmed hut with hot water ready, courteous of Gary. Gary had skied in on Christmas day and camped at the lake. Waking up early he’d cached his sled of camping gear and set out on a direct route to the hut and should have beaten us there.
Up ahead I saw Craig suddenly talking to Gary and knew we must be really close to the hut. I was surprised to see Gary here, but was grateful that he’d decided to leave the hut and come out and break trail towards us and help us the last portion to the hut. I was curious why he was wearing a full backpack and had only one pole however.
Craig, Linda and I soon passed by Gary while Craig continued leading to the hut. It was then I began to realize that Gary hadn’t found the hut yet and had been wandering about on the ridge for a while. He’d reached the point where he had to start down with the idea of either finding us or returning all the way to the lake where his tent and warm gear were. Later I’d hear how he’d broken a pole on the climb up the ridge.
We reached the hut finally and proceeded to get the stove running and water boiling on the propane burners. Over the next hour everyone else filed in and began the process of recovering from the cold and hard work before falling asleep wrapped in warm down.
Saturday morning dawned a crisp -9 degrees Fahrenheit.
I warmed up with a few rounds of coffee and some honey wheat pancakes with strawberries (only a little crushed on the trip in).
We eased into the day with an impromptu yoga session in which I ended up on my back twisted in a pretzel.
Warmed up now we organized a shovel brigade and went to work on the drifts outside.
Our first goal was to widen the covered walk way around the hut’s entrance. We also wanted to knock down the huge wall of snow that was blocking a lot of light from entering the hut.
During this process, Gary noticed that the solar panel on the roof was covered with snow. We got on our skis to tour around the hut and look for the best way to the roof. A rock wall was ruled out as a safe climb due to the cold and snow covered rocks. Gary found a drift that lead to a shed he could mantle up and then reach the roof.
Meanwhile, Bill had started breaking down the snow cornice leaning over the roof and I shoveled away the debris. Gary and Alex started in on cleaning off the back deck.
By now I’d worked off my breakfast in the -2 degree temps and we all retreated inside to warm up and eat some lunch.
I was content with sitting around for the rest of the day, drinking hot beverages and trying to keep my reading material away from Sue. Alex and his mom decided to head out and get a few turns in on a road switch back nearby.
Gary repaired his broken ski pole and a few of us made runs outside to gather snow to increase our water supply. Another group of 6 showed up and would be needing lots of liquids, plus we wanted to leave half a jug for the next group coming in tomorrow.
It was a little warmer when we woke up (about positive 9 degrees) on Sunday and we rushed through the morning more quickly than on Saturday.
We had to clean up the hut, stack more firewood and make sure everything was safe to leave and ready for the next group.
A bit before 9am we left the hut (after the other group who had to head over the continental divide) and followed the tracks toward Hagerman Pass. Before long we found the blue diamond markers pointing down into Glacier Creek. Gary on his telemark skis and I on the AT setup quickly dropped through the trees on this steep section of the trail. Once at the meadows I had to stop and put on my skins to make any forward progress.
In the second meadow I found wind-eroded day old tracks from Craig, Linda and John’s ski out on Saturday. The snow had compressed under their skis, but the soft snow around their tracks had blown away leaving a raised track instead of the more typical parallel trenches.
I continued to follow the old tracks which were mostly visible and only slightly filled in with wind-blown snow. Gary caught up with me and passed by while I took my skins off for the next downhill section.
Once back at the road I again re-applied the skins to the bottoms of my skis and started the long shuffle out to the cars. I hadn’t gone more than 5 steps when I found that I’d lost traction on my right ski. Looking back I saw the skin from that ski lying in my tracks. I shuffled back and put it back on a little tighter this time. Here I ran into the advance pair of the next group headed into the Skinner Hut. They were glad to know we’d freshly broken trail for them all the way to the hut. While talking to them I dug some duct tape from my pack and used it to make sure my skins stayed on.
Gary had dug out the sled of camping gear he’d cached nearby and we agreed to journey out together.
Numerous snowmobiles passed on as we slowly made our way back to the dam, but they did serve to keep the road packed down and made travel a little easier than if we’d had to break trail the whole way.
The sun was out and we barely noticed the wind as the temperatures had climbed up to the mid 20’s. I took off the skins one last time and double-poled my way down the final descent to the dam, barely keeping enough speed to continue gliding the whole way. Once back on the flats I re-attached the skins and crept along the dam and back to my car.
What was the reading material you were trying to keep away from Sue?
“The Unforgiving Minute” by Tim Jarvis – it’s a book about his polar journeys (hauling a sled across Antarctica or the frozen seas of the North Pole) and the title comes from a Kipling poem. The AAC library recently got a copy for the stacks and I’d been looking for a copy to read for a few years. Someone I was pacing at the Tecumseh marathon suggested it some years ago. I think Sue got about 50 or so pages into it whenever I put it down for a second.