An equally great way to hit Colorado's slopes: Without the snow. Here's how. - Washington Post
Look out the front door of the Fowler-Hilliard hut and you’ll see the massive, jagged mountains of Colorado’s Holy Cross Wilderness exploding into the horizon in nearly every direction. Through the picture windows in the hut’s enclosed back porch are the Gore Range, home of Vail Mountain Resort, thousands of acres of wilderness and a bevy of wildlife, from black bears to marmots. And it is the same view — with wildflowers and cliffs of granite looming above dense pine forests subbing for snow and ice — that will greet me later this summer, in August, when I return to the hut for a high-alpine family reunion. I should say here that “hut” is something of a misnomer: Fowler-Hilliard boasts a light-flooded interior, rooftop solar panels, a wood-burning stove with fuel stacked to Swiss-chalet standards and classic rough-hewn-log furniture. Rather, Fowler-Hilliard is one of 34 huts in Colorado’s storied 10th Mountain Division Hut system, a network of lodges in the valleys and ridges that connect Colorado’s abundant mountains, many of which rise above 14,000 feet. These huts bear the legacy of the U. S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, which trained in Colorado’s high country to prepare for Europe’s rigorous mountainous terrain during World War II. One soldier, Fritz Benedict, returned to Aspen from the front... It took several decades, but in 1982 the first of the 10th Mountain Division huts was built. Source: www.washingtonpost.com
