Sunday we drove to Montrose, CO and stayed in a cheap hotel for the night. This was all fine and uneventful until the last 45 min when Jason started to feel unwell. 2 hours later, he was curled up in the fetal position under the covers with the heat cranked and his puffy on. Poor guy! Rachel and I decided to walk the hallway of the hotel, check out the pool, and eat dinner. Rachel has had an on-again-off-again head cold for the last couple of weeks, and she woke many times throughout the night asking for milk and water. It seems every trip we take, I resume night nursing... boo. Thankfully Jason felt better by the morning, despite little sleep for any of us.
We drive from warm cloudy weather into snow. We found the parking lot for the trailhead and were thrilled to see that the road beyond was open, which meant we could drive the first 3 miles of the hike! (I was secretly hoping this would be the case all along, since 6.5 miles of snowshoeing might have been more than we could have done with our family.) Our car did awesome in its first off-road adventure and the snow came down hard as we did the final preparations at the trailhead. Rachel hates being bundled up and not going anywhere, so she protested until we started moving. (See video below of where we parked.)
Rachel fell asleep about 5 min up the trail and slept in the backpack for the next 2 hours!!! Yah - longest nap in weeks! So we hiked along. The first half was relatively easy going, but after the big creek crossing the snow became deeper and the climb became steeper. We took turns breaking trail, and for the last 3/4 mile we took 20 steps each and then switched. Our GPS told us we had gone 3.3miles by the time we finally found the hut at 10,200ft after 3 hrs, 5 min.
Once inside the hut, we had to warm up and eat as quickly as possible. Nobody had been in the hut for a while, as we were the first Winter users this season. The woodpile was buried in snow and there was no kindling and no axe. We dug around in the woodpile to find smaller wood pieces that were dry, and worked on starting a fire. Rachel was mad. Her hands were cold, she was hungry, and her sniffles and cough had progressed. Jason and I were also cold and a bit hungry for lunch (It was about 12:30pm)... so these were tense minutes. We wondered if we would have enough small wood to keep a fire going for the next two days, or at least overnight.
Soon all was well again, the hut warmed up, and then we realized it was only 2pm and we still had a good 5 hours to entertain Rachel. The wood stove was in the center of the hut and she could not touch it. This meant one adult was physically attached to Rachel at all times while the other adult prepared food or melted snow for water. Rachel did loops around the wood stove and even ate snow out of the 'fridge'.
We had no toys, one book that we each read 100 times, and a small space. Rachel decided it was fun to try and feed her Daddy goldfish.
We were all asleep by 7:30pm and, although we woke many times to comfort Rachel and stoke the fire, it wasn't the worst night. The sun came out the next morning to reveal mountain peaks around us that would have been fantastic for backcountry skiing on a bluebird day the morning after a dump. But we decided to pack up and head down to find a more comfortable place to play with Rachel.
The hike back down was fantastic! Blue sky, sunshine, and mountains everywhere that we had no idea were there. Neither of us had ever been to this area before, and we had an amazing morning. The hike down was easy, fun, fast, and Rachel still slept in the pack for about half of it! Brilliant. Check out the aspen.
We drove from Ridgway to Ouray (pronounced You-Ray) to check it out and have lunch. We ate at Maggie's, where the decor consists of people's names written in black marker all over the restaurant (including the ceiling). Here Rachel decided that french fries are gross but feeding them to her Mommy is a fun thing to do.
Then we drove to Telluride.
This trip was a tough one with a 13 month old. Everything went well and we were happy with the way it turned out. There was risk, there was discomfort, and there was reward. This was our 3rd hut trip as a family and it was tough. Next time we might have to pack more books, a few gates for around the stove, and a mule to carry all that stuff!
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