Ladies Backcountry Hut Trip

My extremely amazing Mother-in-law, Ann, came to visit us for the past 9 days. I was giving her a recap of our winter, spring and summer and realized that I was WAY behind on putting photos up on our blog. So I am going to try and catch up!

Back in March, I went on a ladies backcountry hut trip to the Lost Wonder Hut, which is about 3 miles up a trail head off of Monarch Pass. I was meeting a group of women from Colorado Springs and wasn't able to meet them at the Trailhead when they were starting up, so I trekked up by myself via snowshoe. It was a steep climb and I was sharing dinner responsibilities, so I had to hoof it really quickly with the heavy pack (and cross country skis for the ski back down in the morning). While on the trek up, I came upon another trail head for Boss Lake and for some reason, it reminded me of my friend Jenn Crawford. Boss.

By the time I reached the hut, it was almost dark and the other women were already up there. I set to work making dinner with my friend Bethany after chopping some wood to heat the hut. We made eggplant parmesan over polenta, which seemed to be quite the hit among the group.

After dinner, we hung out talking via headlamps, candlelight, etc and then settled in for the night in our bunks. I stayed up late reading with my headlamp and woke up to another gorgeous bluebird Colorado morning in the backcountry. A great breakfast was made and then we set to work with our individual chores to clean up the hut before we had to leave. I was meeting friends, who had Lochlan with them, at the hot springs later that morning, so I was on a time crunch to get out of there. I ended up leaving before everyone else, along with a big bag of trash to pack out.

I realized I had forgotten my ski poles back at the car before snowshoeing up to the hut, so the ski back down was quite eventful and humorous. If anyone else had been with me, they would have busted a gut laughing non stop at my many, many crashes on the way back down the steep and slippery trail. My pack and the bag of trash made me extremely unbalanced and not having poles to rely on, I wish someone had been able to witness the hilariousness of that morning. Looking forward to another backcountry trip with some really awesome ladies again this coming winter! Next time, I won't forget my ski poles.