PNW Ski Huts

After sitting unsuccessfully for 3 hours patiently waiting amidst a large crowd in the Seattle REI for the chance to reserve my night at one of the Mount Tahoma Trails ski huts, I began to wonder – why don’t we have more options for ski huts in the PNW?

Obviously there is a high demand for winter ski lodging – as evidenced by the more than 150 people patiently waiting for hours as names are called and the lucky get to reserve their ski vacations.

It seems like there are plenty of potential locations as well. Many of the areas my partners and I ski are outside of both National Park and Wilderness designated areas. Many of those locations even have summer vehicle access – using established highways (think of cascade passes closed in the winter) or logging roads.

So, with the numbers of interested people, numerous possible locations and wet PNW weather that often discourages winter camping trips, why don’t we have more huts here? I’m not talking about huge overbuilt and over hyped commercial ventures, but small stone or wood structures with a simple wood stove and an outhouse. Somewhere the public can ski in and enjoy an evening in the company of other winter travelers and dry out their gear. Something along the lines of many of the remote BC huts in the coast range (Muir Hut, Keith’s hut, etc)

Is it a culture thing - is there a general fear of degrading the winter experience by concentrating use in huts? If so-why? There will always be places out of reach of hut skiers (Alpine Lakes Wilderness, North Cascades N.P., Rainier N.P., etc)

Does the Forest Service just not permit huts to be built in the cascades?

Is it a liability concern?

Is this something we can reasonable expect to change as more and more people enter the backcountry in the winter?

What do folks think about this?

Going to college in Eugene,OR I really appreciated the quantity of winter shelters that were scattered about the Willamette National Forest...  www.fs.fed.us/r6/willamette/recreation/t.../shelters/index.html

Never understood why Oregon has some good little shelters and cabins, yet Washington doesn't have much of anything.   I'd certainly be in favor of having a handfull of shelters around the passes.

I know when my old man and a few others put together the MTTA organization and build the huts back in the early 90's, there was a lot of people involved and having that interested group willing to put in lots of time into the organization was important (for instance, I put in over 1000 hrs over the space of several years as a teenager). For something like this to work, you'd need a group who'd be willing to discuss matters with the forest managers, and to work through the liability issues. As a non-profit like MTTA, there were less restrictions.

Unfortunately, all this hard work can go for naught. This past season the sno-bowl hut burned to the ground.

The Methow Valley has a nice hut system- more XC oriented, but still good touring to be found.

The Methow Valley hut system is privately owned and was for sale last summer. They withdrew it from the market sometime last fall and said they where working on some of the huts and that it was going on the market again sometime in the future. Not sure where it stands as of now.

my 2 cents:
The USA " wilderness" ethic has certainly curtailed the development of European or even Canadian hut systems in the national parks, ( not saying that's good or bad) which leaves the only possibility as being either state , Forest service or other public controlled land. The amount of effort required would be immense and I fear that nobody could afford the Environmental Impact Study costs and  costs of defending the law suits that would  inevitably be lodged from various " wilderness" groups.

My own view is that's its a shame, as when you see how the Canadians and the Europeans have managed to develop a hut system it shows how it can be done.

As to a comment on the European hut system , I would quote our very own  Mr. Gordy Skoog in the latest Backcountry magazine article about the Haute Route, who says" take the huts away and you have Alaska," which I infer to mean that the huts have not denuded from the experience. Of course, you could read that statement both ways. Perhaps he can comment on his meaning.

But on the other hand, it keeps people out other than the real die-hards who will ring their own shelters and keeps the area more wildernessy and mavericky!

I like it without huts, but there are a few places it'd wouldn't be such a bad thing, i.e. around the ski areas or nearby.