Ashcroft, Colorado
Cross Country Skiing
The Markley Hut - Part 3
Tuesday, December 31, 2003 - New Year's Eve Day
The next morning we had a breakfast and got started late.
Jim skied a short loop in the woods around the hut, exploring an initially packed trail leading above the hut. He wanted to see if he could get back to the main trail without taking the way we came in, which headed down the valley a fair way before intersecting the road. The packed trail eventually headed up a steep side valley, away from the road, so he came back down, and bushwhacked. Eventually he made it to the road, breaking trail uphill through woods and unpacked snow. Without skins it would have been exceptionally difficult. As it was, it took a while, longer than he expected, because as he found out when he finally did make it to the road, the road heads of uphill in a somewhat different direction above the intersection with the branch trail to the hut.
While Jim was out, Roz relaxed and read and packed the toboggan. It was cold and snowing lightly so not very inviting for that extra ski up the hill. But Roz finally decided to do the trip up.
Jim heads out for his morning jaunt.
It looks cold and forbidding. Maybe Roz won't go out.
We left the toboggan at the hut, and skied up above the hut about a mile, steady uphill all the way. Jim skied ahead of Roz at the end and caught up to a couple of ladies taking a break on their way to the Goodwin Greene hut. On the way back to the hut, Jim took a shortcut, heading down an unpacked (intermediate by DH standards) slope a couple hundred yards long, taking a good 10 minutes off the trip, intersecting the trail to the hut a short distance from the hut. (This would have been the best candidate for a shortcut going up to the road).
We had a leisurely lunch at the hut, warmed up with the fire, and then headed down. Skiing down with the sled was not especially difficult (now substantially lighter, since we took all our drinking water with us).
But Roz did go out and it was cold!
It took three hours going up and 1 hour coming down
The valley opens up with a nice view.
A moment on the trail to take an interesting picture.
10 minutes above Ashcroft, you get a good view of the ghost town.
And the saloon.
We go back to the car about 4:00 pm. We had time to go to the supermarket and video store and buy goodies to celebrate New Year's Eve with Robert.
It was a great tip fro Roz's first back country hut trip, even if it is only three miles up.
For more information on the Braun and 10th Mountain Huts in the Aspen and Vail region, go to http://huts.org and the Markley Hut in particular.
