Arestua Hut

On Saturday Ashley and I went to the holiday party for Lyman Henn, the company I worked for last summer. It was held at the Wyncoop Brewery in Denver, and I walked away with a chicken butt cooker from the white elephant gift exchange. Anytime I get as much free beer and wine as I can drink is worthy of some blog space.

On Sunday we hiked into the Arestua Hut with three of Ashley's friends from work. Ryan, the guy in the photo taken inside the cabin, and I skied in from the top of the Corona Chairlift at Eldora. This made the total distance something like 2.25 miles. Ashley, Whitney, and Melanie snowshoed in from the trailhead, making for a 4.5 mile hike with significantly more elevation gain. Ryan and I owe our smarter route to my new GPS, which constantly told us how far we needed to go and in what direction to travel. We all spent the night in the hut and had no additional company. It snowed about 5 inches overnight. While the cold temperatures found at 11,000 feet made for heavenly snow conditions, the woodstove in the cabin efficiently heated the room to a higher degree than most of us heat our own homes this time of year.