My first experience with the 10th Mountain Division Hut System was in the Winter of 2002, when myself, a retired Lieutenant Colonel, and three other cadets took a trip to the Shrine Mountain Inn at Vail Pass. The trip had an interesting start--we arrived in complete white-out blizzard conditions. We followed a trail that we couldn't see the two miles from I-70 to the Hut, and then enjoyed an evening of spaghetti, card games, and steam sauna trips (yes, there was an outdoor wood-burning sauna hut). Unfortunately, that trip was barely photo-documented, and I did not end up with any of the photos. But, that trip launched an interest in the Hut system which developed into the Betty Bear Hut Incident.

The roster for this trip included myself, Duncan, Melissa, and Nick. The original plan was to spend Thursday night after finals week in Glenwood Springs with some friends, go to Betty Bear Hut and spend the night on Friday, move on to Skinner Hut on the other side of the Continental Divide and spend the night, then return on Sunday. Not so difficult right? Right. Thursday night went well; Duncan and Melissa had finished their finals early and so headed up to Glenwood on their own, while Nick and I left later in the evening. We had all rented snowshoes for the trip and Nick and I had opted to bring our snowboard and skis, respectively, in addition. We had no problem meeting at our host's house that night and spent what was left of the evening divying up our food and packing any last minute items.

We left the next morning in our Subaru convoy, Melissa's Outback Sport and my 1988 GL Wagon (Suby), through Basalt and back south and east toward our trailhead. When we arrived at the bottom of the road to our trail, we realized that there might be some hiking involved. We attempted to get up the road once and had to back down because Melissa's car just couldn't gain enough traction to make it up the first hill. My car seemed to be doing okay though, so after we backed down, Duncan and Melissa made to go it on foot, while Nick and I decided to get as far as we could in the car. The trail was 4.6 miles from the bottom of the road, and through some very deep snow and some sketchy turns Nick and I managed to get as far as 4.5 miles before Suby couldn't quite handle the snow on a banked turn and slid into a ditch on the side of the road. Two hours later when Duncan and Melissa caught up to us Nick and I were still trying to get Suby out of the snow. We resolved to give it one more shot before we gave up and headed up to the hut.

Our last attempt didn't work, and so we packed up and moved out. We had some trouble finding the trailhead, and stopped a few times to get our bearings. Even though my odometer showed that we had traveled 4.5 miles up the road, we found ourselves hiking another mile and a half before we found a trail that looked like the correct one. Later we learned that the trail we were looking for had indeed been only a couple hundred feet from my abandoned Suby. But for now we were content that we had found the Lily Pad Lake Trail and began to climb.

Since Nick and I had opted to carry ski and snowboard equipment we lagged behind the lighter pairing of Duncan and Melissa. Soon we separated into two groups with the understanding that Duncan and Melissa would go ahead and get the hut ready and then backtrack to help us with our loads. We had not yet reached what we thought to be a halfway point and the sun was quickly fading . The trail we were on seemed easy enough--just follow the switchbacks and keep going up. Once it got dark though the trail became a little more difficult to negotiate, especially in areas where it narrowed and sloped downward. Shortly after it got dark I realized that I could not feel my feet. I stopped and discovered that my boots and socks were soaked through and that my toes were actually iced over. I brushed off my feet and re-clothed them in fresh socks and a waterproof liner to go inside my boots. I still couldn't feel my toes, but they weren't getting any worse. Meanwhile Nick was becoming lethargic and very cold. It was about this time that we discovered he had been drinking distilled water all day--which, for those of you who don't know, is not for drinking as it strips your body of minerals and electrolites. We determined Nick to be in first stage hypothermia, so we loaded him up with heater packets and no matter how much he wanted to I wouldn't let him stop walking. Eventually we reached the top of the trail and Lily Pad Lake.

As soon as we reached to top I settled Nick on top of his pack and loaded him down with good water and more heaters. Then I went in search of Duncan and Melissa. I was overjoyed when I spotted their headlamps in the trees to the East and I called out, "Did you find it?" When Duncan's answer, "Nooooo," came back I started to get worried. When we finally reached each other (with me taking diggers into the snow about every fifty feet) I updated them on the condition of Nick and I. Melissa had sustained a bad muscle pull in the meantime and could only walk about ten yards without stopping from the pain. Duncan seemed to be in good shape, if not a little concerned that he had tramped all over the woods to the East without finding any trace of the hut.

At this point I started to wonder if we really had taken the wrong trail, so I asked for the hut guidebook and sat down in the snow with my compass and the map. After a short while I determined that the trail we had come in on came in from the South, whereas the trail we had thought we were on came in to the valley from the West. We were looking in the wrong place for the hut--the trail we had come in on was East of the hut, not West like we had thought. With this realization Duncan and I gathered all of the gear together with Nick and Melissa and took off with only our CamelBaks and snowshoes and poles in search of the hut. By some miracle we found a sign indicating the general direction of the hut and following that and an unnaturally straight line in the snow (which turned out to be a set of snowshoe tracks) we literally stumbled across the hut. We might very well have walked right past it if out of the corners of our eyes we noticed the split logs illuminated by our headlamps. The temperature as we walked into the dead hut, was easily thirty degrees warmer than the outside. As comfortable as that place was, even without fires burning in the cast iron stoves, we knew we had to go back and get Nick and Melissa, which we did in short order. After filling the place with smoke heating the flue and getting fires lit we settled in for a very comfortable night's rest.

The following morning we awoke and took stock of our situation. Nick, although no longer hypothermic was severely dehydrated and in no shape to make another trek that day. Melissa's leg was in such pain that she refused to go up and down the stairs in the hut more than once every two hours. My feet were completely numb, and so while soaking them in a pot of warm water, we made the decision to not continue on to Skinner Hut. Being a 10th Mountain hut, there were plenty of things for us to do. We cooked a wonderfully filling breakfast in one of the most well-equipped kitchens I had ever been in and enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing, doing housekeeping, and just enjoying the hut in general. After several warm water treatments my feet regained a significant amount of feeling and function, so I set out to keep awake and keep busy by chopping wood and helping keep up the hut.

In the late afternoon another couple showed up, who thankfully did not mind sharing the hut with us that evening, as our reservation for that night was not at Betty Bear, but at Skinner. They had brought a much better map than we had, so Duncan and I spent some time poring over it and figuring out where we had gone wrong. Solving that, we then turned our attentions to what we were missing by not going to Skinner Hut that night. Our new hut-mates informed us that the Continental Divide was only three miles away and that the trail was easy to follow. Duncan and I exchanged glances and I noticed a glint in his eye (he probably noticed one in mine as well).

I spoke first, "You want to go for it, don't you?"

"I'm thinking about it," he replied, somewhat distantly. I knew that even though the sun was already on its way down, we would probably be making a night trek to the Divide.

By this time my feet were feeling considerably better, although I still had no feeling in my toes, so I was also considering going on this little twilight jaunt. By the time Duncan and I vocalized our decision it was already dark, so we decided to eat dinner first. We made a large pot of chili with beef for the four of us, which seemed to be just right for preparing for our spontaneous night trip. After cleaning up Duncan and I suited up into our outer-wear which had been drying all day near the stove and was now very warm. Strapping on our snowshoes and CamelBaks we said goodbye to our friends and headed North from the hut into the valley above us. The snow in the lake valley was very deep, and the snowshoes were the only reason we made it across. Once across we scaled a slope to find a road that seemed to have been used for snowmobiling recently. It headed East toward the divide so we followed it. This whole time we were able to travel without any artificial light at all, because the moon was out and the reflected light from the snow was more than enough to see by. Eventually the road led into a cirque, and then we had to find our way up the side of the mountain to reach Hagerman Pass at 11925 feet. When we got there we stood in awe of all we could see. Leadville and Turquoise Lake lay below several miles away. We new that somewhere a little over a mile away lay Skinner Hut. We were tempted to go find it, just so we could say we made it, but in the end decided to return to Betty Bear and our friends. The return trip was even more tranquil than the outbound leg. The moon was shining on the snow, causing it to glitter like somebody had strewn tinsel on the ground. The sound of snow compressing under our snowshoes was like the sound of walking on pillows. The scenery was magnificent--truly something that I can not forget. Unfortunately, neither Duncan or I brought a camera on this portion of the trip--something that to this day we kick ourselves for.

When we arrived we were surprised to find out that we had been gone for less than three hours. The six mile round trip had seemed much longer than it actually was, and with no watches or other references for time we felt like we had been gone half the night. We stayed up talking with our friends and after everyone else had retired I made our second entry into the guest book regarding our trip to the Divide. After finishing, I went to sleep expecting a busy day come morning.

We woke up relatively early the next morning and prepared to depart. Taking some last minute pictures of our group and the hut that we now wished we could stay in, we set off down the correct trail this time, to see what could be done about my car. We all started out just trekking in our snowshoes, but gradually we developed our own methods and paths to get down. Nick was unable to use his snowboard because of the trees on the trail, but I sat down and put my skis on to see what I could do. It was not easy, and I got stuck more than a few times, but I think it was worth hauling them up there just to be able to ride down from the hut. We took a lot of great pictures of everyone on the way down, since we didn't have the opportunity to get the pictures of us on the way to Skinner Hut. We made sure to take a picture of the trailhead marker that we missed and caused all the trouble, just so we know what it looks like next time.

Ah, but what about Suby? Did we save her? I'll keep this answer short. When we got back to the car, try as we might we could not get Suby to budge, and besides that her battery was dead and the fuel tank was tilted so that the pump could not pump any gas. So Duncan skiied down to Melissa's car on my skis and drove into town to find someone to tow us out. The town's (I don't remember its name) Christmas Party was going on that day, so the only people Duncan could find charged $100 to come pull Suby out. Nick, Melissa and I meanwhile were starting to get very cold in my dead car, and it was just getting dark when we heard the rumble of an engine. We were saved and once my car was righted and jump started we were headed home. It was the end of a disastrous but enjoyable trip. And, of course, it makes for a great story!

If you are interested in visiting Betty Bear Hut or any other hut in Colorado this is where you should make your reservations and find out information about the hut system. I would also highly recommend this book along with the official 10th Mountain maps which can be found here