Sangree M. Froelicher Hut Trip

As mentioned in the CB wrap up, I was headed out the door to go spend the weekend at the Sangree M. Froelicher Hut at 10,700 feet on an alpine ridge above Leadville, CO. This hut is run through the 10th Mountain Division Huts (which were created in honor of the ski troops from Colorado that fought in WWII-pretty interesting history-website here: http://www.huts.org/)
We took off from Denver on Thursday afternoon and headed up into the mountains (oh I'm typing this on Polly's computer so the letter that comes after I is missing it is because here key doesn't work) to a nuking winter storm that seemed to be crowding in the Tunnel. Mel and I had signed up for this particular hut trip because it was also an AIARE Avalanche 1 certification class. I was pretty certain that a lot of what we learned for this would be review for me but I figured I should take the official certification anyways and theres nothing like spending a whole weekend in the backcountry studying avalanches to get it into your skull. In fact, when we got up there it seemed to me that I was actually the most experience of all the people taking the class. In fact, there were several people there who had zero backcountry experience, which I was a little surprised about. Anyways, the class got me pretty geared up to take my Avalanche II certification and was a phenomenal review to get me to start thinking like an avalanche.
So we had the class Thursday night and Friday morning and then departed for the trailhead from the Leadville Hostel (where I am totally staying the next time I end up in Leadville) on Friday AM. The trailhead started by heading up Buckeye Gulch towards Buckeye Peak. It was about a 3 mile skin with about 1600 feet of elevation gain. Not too bad, but an interesting experience doing it with 12 people. I'd never skinned with that many folks in one group. For the size of the group we kept up a pretty consistent pace. Mel did really well, only minimal swearing this time, considering it was her second time skinning. The scenery was mainly below treeline, but I struck up a pretty consistent amount of conversation with one of our guides Deborah Keller (she works for the Powder Cat operation off the back of Aspen Mountain, she's great! Highly recommended) for most of the trip up, so between swapping stories and trying to breathe the uphill went pretty quickly. The scenery got gorgeous as we neared treeline as, the ridge line we were on had stunning views of rollers and the mountains that Independence Pass goes over. And suddenly peaking through a pine grove about 20 feet down from treeline, the Sangree hut appeared through the mountains. This hut was a beautiful restored log cabin complete with solar array, wood burning stove and an outhouse. Everything had a pine and wood burning odor to it that welcomed you the second you stepped in the front door. (Side note: none of the pictures came out all that great so the editing has been shafted for the moment, however whats a blog without pictures?)
So returning to the story at hand. After a quick drop off of stuff and another round of classroom session with our guides Scott and Deborah, myself and a few of the other gentlemen on the trip decided to rip up above treeline to find something to ski down. The work up went fast, sans packs and all, what we managed to find was slabby wind swept snow and really really really cold weather. After locating our options we decided to make a hasty retreat below treeline and back into the hut. I decided to go last as I was trying to snap some of photos of the high alpine at sunset and with one last glimpse at the alpenglow settling in over the west I jetted down through some wonderful trees that seemed to be holding nothing but fresh powder.
This was my longest trip out into the backcountry and also my first time traveling with guides. While we were distinctly in a classroom setting we did definetly get times to ski on our own which was awesome. It was great to meet some new backcountry partners. I really enjoyed being able to pick up the language and knowledge of the guides, in fact, I made it a point to talk to them as much as humanly possible to see if any of their knowledge could rub off on me.
Saturday dawned after a night of crashing out and only a few midnight outhouse runs to extremely cold weather. Scott and Deborah had long prepared us that we might have to change from the usual Saturday plans for the class as the weather was just that bad, which was the case. This is generally the way of backcountry travel, you have to be flexible and be aware that a lot of times your going to go with plan B or even plan C so this wasn't really a problem. It's part of the experience and part of what inspires your time in the mountains and turns your experience just that much more into a living breathing thing, which is how you have to treat mountains some times.
True to the name of this blog, later in the day we got some of the best tree runs in that I have had in a long time. Mark (first time mentioned here, potentially to be mentioned again) and I yo-yoed a few runs right outside the cabin right around dusk. There is a sublime feeling that comes from skiing through trees with deep powder, it's like a less operatic technical line. Same high consequences but something softer and more sublime that conquering a massive cliffed in chute. These runs that we skied had close together trees, laced in by deep powder, but alternated with rollers and open meadows.
The next day we woke up to a flurry of packing and a gorgeous sunrise peaking in through the windows. I really love waking up to the sun rising over mountains and creating an alpenglow that bounces right off the snow and in through the windows. The soft tranquility of it just knocks your socks off and made me leap out of my bed to get to my camera. Today was the day that we were departing the Sangree hut and once again due to a lack of snow on some of the rollers that usual route finding tips are done on we would be skiing in the trees again on some broad open slopes that would take us right down to the trailhead. We ended up departing the hut around 10:30 and skiing through some glade runs that took us straight to the bottom of Buckeye Gulch and right back to our trailhead. We went pretty slowly as we had some beginning telemarkers with us, who practically fell down the slopes (skiing up until this point had been totally optional), but ended up back at the trailhead and the car at 11:30 am.
I'm still not quite sure what my full thoughts on the weekend were, I felt as though the class had loads of practical information in it and the experience itself was one that any aspiring alpinist should start off with. I guess I'll leave this post with a quote that I just read that I seem to like, "Both activities (climbing and skiing) are more than just sports: they are ways of coming into intense and beautiful relationships with mountains, and that was what I wanted in my life." -Bela G. Vadasz
I think this weekend is summed up in this quote for me. To have a relationship, you have to give and take, but when you have a relationship with a mountain, it will give you so much, but when it needs something you had better respect that intense and beautiful bond and give it what it needs.
On the stereo-Dispatch, Hey Hey