Eiseman Hut scouting trip

On Monday December 29th Kyle, Andy, Dean and I scouted out the Eiseman Hut for our upcoming trip over MLK day. We took the spraddle creek route, since that's the shortest route to the hut. We had a beautiful day - it was about 20 degrees when we left the car at 8:30, and probably got up to the mid-30s. It's quite an interesting route - a lot of up and down in the first 2 1/2 miles, followed by a consistent climb for 2.5 miles, followed by a steep climb for 2 miles to the hut. Dean and I were on AT skis, Kyle was on tele's, and Andy was on snowshoes carrying a snowboard. Dean bailed after about 3 miles because of some blister problems - ouch! Andy stopped about 20 mins before we got to the hut because it looked like the final stretch was flat (it wasn't) and he wanted to be able to ride his board as far as he could. Kyle and I made it to the hut just before 2:30 - total time just under 6 hours.

The Eiseman hut is the most spacious hut I've been to. (so far I've been to Fowler-Hillard, Vance's Cabin, Polar Star, and the Lost Wonder Hut) It's only one story, but could have been built with a 2nd story, but it's all open. The views to the west are incredible, and supposedly there is great skiing right off the front porch. I'm anxious to go back this weekend and give it a shot. Unfortunately none of us brought a camera that day, so I don't have any pics.

The ski out was tougher than expected. The first 2.5 miles went by quickly, then there were lots of little hills we (mostly I) had problems with. We had to skin up for one long section and by the time we got back to the main road it was pretty dark. We skiied by headlamp for the last 1.8 miles, and got a great view of the lights of vail coming down. all in all it was a fantastic day and a successful scouting trip.