Point Breeze Hut, Take 2

You may have read our blog one month ago about our hut trip to the Point Breeze Hut near Leadville, CO.

We recently did it again!  This time we went with a different family: Dad "C", Mom "A", 5.5 year old "Joe", and 1.5 year old "Ella".  I apologize if some videos and/or pictures work better than others...

We got there ahead of the other crew and went in.  Rachel hiked in her regular snow boots the whole way (0.8 miles).  Sat afternoon we got settled, and then C&A went out for a ski while we watched the kids and made dinner.

We slept much better than we did on the previous trip.  The other family didn't sleep very well.  But they still made us a great pancake breakfast before J&I got to head out and ski.  It snowed another handful of inches overnight, so it was pretty amazing.   I learned that I'm a much better back-country skier when there's loads of snow.  We played in the snow briefly when we returned to the hut, then packed up and headed out at 1pm - right as the next family group was coming in.

It snowed overnight, trying to bury our chariot sled

It was pretty deep trying to take skins on/off as we practiced alpine touring stuff

Traffic coming home Sunday night was horrific... again.  This time we knew about it, expected it, and prepared accordingly.  Since the mountains are having one of the best snow years ever and it kept snowing all day Sunday, we went out for dinner Sunday evening in Frisco.  When the highway still was nuts, we went to hang out with friends in Breck and watched the Olympics for a while.  By 8pm we decided to head home, but even getting to Silverthorne took forever.  We were at a dead stop - Rachel even went potty (in her car potty) while we were stopped in the traffic.  I even removed Ava from her car seat, nursed her, and put her back in without going more than 10 feet at one point.

Then the girls slept in the car while we crawled our way home.  We got home at 1am and started work Monday morning without being very organized.  Our friends got a hotel Sunday night and came home Monday morning.

All in all this hut trip was much more of a success for us than the previous one.  We were better packed and knew what to expect.  We stayed at the hut longer.  We had way more snow, which was fun.  Most importantly, we got some sleep.

I think we've decided not to enter the hut lottery for next year and just see what happens more last minute with huts next winter.  I LOVE staying at log cabins in the woods... but we might have to put our pennies toward renting our own log cabin of sorts to avoid some of this crazy traffic next winter.

There are lots of pictures from this trip, so we've posted away from this blog.  Hope you can see them ok:
FACEBOOK PICTURES CLICK HERE