How to Take Advantage of the U.S. Huts System

Immerse yourself in nature and live rustically for a few nights in the woods

The Madison Spring Hut, maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire, is the nation’s first hut.

Appalachian Mountain Club

Cari Shane,

AARP

En español

Published March 12, 2024

With skins on her Alpine Touring (AT) skis and about 35 pounds on her back, Ann Kampf of Silverthorne, Colorado, trekked away from the resorts in Summit County, Colorado. She was wearing a bespeckled tutu around her waist because, “why not! It’s fun and festive!” says Kampf.

The 73-year old was headed into the White River National Forest for a few nights in a hut with 16 others ranging in age from 55 to 78. The removable skins on her skis gripped the snow as she climbed up Bald Mountain on marked trails; she’d peel them off later for some backcountry downhill skiing on untouched powder. The group was leaving behind traffic snarls, parking headaches and increasingly long lift lines, for Sisters Cabin, one of 38 huts maintained by the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association, including the newest, Emmelyn Hut, added in 2023. It would take two to three hours to trek 3.7 miles from the trailhead to Sisters Cabin, which sits at 11,473 feet on Bald Mountain; from the top, views include the Continental Divide.

According to Sam Demas, there are 27 different U.S. huts systems offering opportunity for multiday traverses, boasting more than 2,200 beds in more than 170 huts (and counting), the majority of which are open year-round. The huts, from Maine to Alaska, originally served as shelter for skiers and hikers traveling in the backcountry. As backcountry adventure has grown, the huts often serve as base camps for skiers and campers. Demas, who cowrote Hut-to-Hut USA: The Complete Guide for Hikers, Bikers and Skiers, says the hut systems, which are run by for-profit and nonprofit operations, “had to have at least three structures that were meant to be traveled in sequence” and not be accessible by road. The huts system is focused on human-powered travel, where people walk to the next hut, settle in and meet the hut mates for the night, he says. You’re “in effect living communally, staying overnight with strangers.”

To Demas, there’s something quite romantic and freeing about going out into the wilderness.

It’s a chance “to go out in search of who you really are when you get away from your usual routine,” says Demas, 75. He’s “hutted” around the world, including in Europe, where the concept originated, and in New Zealand, which boasts the largest hut system in the world.

Explore these four hut systems for a wonderful sense of adventure.

The McNamara Hut in Colorado is covered in snow

The McNamara Hut is one of the original huts in the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association.

10th Mountain Division Hut Association

10th Mountain Division Hut Association, Colorado

Unlike the full-service European model, which provides bedding and hot meals, the majority of U.S. huts systems offer four walls, a roof and simple mattress-covered bunks. There are full kitchens that allow for cooking. With no running water, many huts have rainwater collection systems; in the winter, visitors will melt fresh snow using portable filters and water purifiers to make the water potable. Outhouses with composting toilets are typical; showers are rare.

“The decision not to embrace the full-service European-style hut had a lot to do with the founders wanting to promote self-reliance,” says Ben Dodge, executive director of 10th Mountain Division, which opened its first hut in 1983.

Kampf, who has been on at least 60 journeys into the forest to stay in huts, says that self-reliance in a simple environment breeds a wonderful camaraderie, including meal prep; surviving on power bars doesn’t cut it for Kampf and her friends. On one recent hut trip, the men in Kampf’s group hiked in with 8 pounds of salmon, rice, asparagus and fixings for chocolate fondue as a surprise Valentine’s meal.

For the first time this year, American Prairie is going to experiment with keeping the Lewis & Clark Hut, bottom right, open all year.

American Prairie

American Prairie, Montana

Lisa Ferguson, 72, of Lewistown, Montana, loves a girls-only overnight and days spent hiking and birding near the American Prairie hut system in northeastern Montana’s remote Missouri River Valley. “You feel like a pioneer. … It’s rustic in one sense but comfortable in the other,” she says of the option to stay in two different yurts or a cabin, open between April to December. However, for the first time this year, the Lewis and Clark Hut will remain open all winter – to see how it goes, says Mike Kautz, director of public access and recreation.

In the next five years, Kautz says American Prairie will add a series of movable huts that can be repositioned in response to wildlife patterns and human disturbance.

The Greenleaf Hut is a part of the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire.

Appalachian Mountain Club

Appalachian Mountain Club, New Hampshire

The plan for mobile huts is distinct among the U.S. hut systems, including the nation’s first hut, Madison Spring Hut, maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). Built in 1888 in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Madison Spring is one of eight in their 50-mile hut-to-hut system that offer both the European full-service model in the warmer months (late spring through early fall). Some huts also offer self-service in the winter. During the full-service season, visitors are served hot meals (with an option to purchase midday snacks), allowing for hiking with no more than a small pack. On-site hut masters act as guides, directing visitors to waterfalls and leading challenging hikes to the state’s 4,000-foot peaks throughout the Presidential Range.

Peter Nash, 63 of the Boston area, who’s been taking hut trips since he was in his 20s, says the hut-to-hut system allows hikers to leave a hut after breakfast and easily be at the next hut well before dinner. When you arrive, “Instantly, even if you don’t know anyone, everyone’s talking about ‘Oh, what hike did you do? What hike do you think you’re gonna do tomorrow?’ … There’s this camaraderie that happens.” He calls it “hut magic.”

An historic Alaska Huts Association cabin is barely visible in the snow.

Alaska Huts Association

Alaska Huts Association, Alaska

The Alaska Huts Association is looking to break ground soon on a linked three-hut system, the Glacier Discovery Project, on the Placer River in the Kenai Mountains, says executive director Philip Swiny. Access to the huts in the summer could include a ride on the Alaska railroad, known as the backcountry Whistle Stop corridor; in the winter, hutters will be able to fat-tire bike, ski or snowshoe in.

“It only seems natural in one of the most beautiful places in the world to have [huts],” says Michael Henrich, 65, who has trekked the huts in the Dolomites in Italy and has been an avid hutter in Alaska since he moved there in 1985. “My goal is to get more kids out in the outdoors, because they’re gonna be the ones that protect it in the long run,” he says, encouraging grandparents to lead the way. For intergenerational hut trips, Swiny recommends the Manitoba Cabin, a renovated miner’s cabin in the Chugach National Forest originally built in 1936 and opened to the public in 2012.

Hut access

The American huts system “is not for everyone; but, instead of being for the 1 percent who are among the most physically resilient in the United States, it is for a much, much broader spectrum of humanity,” says Demas. “It has helped open up the wilderness to more people.”

“Humans love to be outside, but we also love shelter,” says American Prairie’s Kautz. “And that mix of exposure and shelter is something that humans find satisfying.”

Industry experts note the continued interest in outdoor adventure, especially for those older than 50. Snowsports Industries America reported a 90 percent growth in Alpine touring participation during the 2022-2023 winter season for all ages. Meanwhile the Outdoor Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Outdoor Industry Association, reported a more than 14 percent increase of participants 55-plus in outdoor adventure between 2019 and 2022, with participants 65 and older in the fastest-growing age group (16.9 percent growth) since the pandemic began.

Some of the huts systems are so popular they require membership just to sign up for a hut lottery, which is how Colorado’s 10th Mountain does it. Others, like American Prairie, open the calendar first to supporters and then on a rolling basis to the public. Some huts systems book only by bunk, hosting anywhere from a dozen guests to nearly 100, like at AMC’s Lake of the Clouds. Some limit stays to two nights, while others will allow for longer stays. Prices range from $20 per night per person to upwards of $150 per night per person for a full service adventure in peak season. To encourage people to “replicate the ancient practice of pilgrimage,” Demas of Hut2Hut created an interactive map of U.S. huts systems that includes planned expansions in places such as Oregon and Minnesota.

For those new to hutting, 10th Mountain’s Dodge suggests having a conversation with a hut system and starting with a summer experience. There’s also the option of hiring a guide or outfitter – helpful, especially, to those coming from out of state who may not be able to travel with packs and food. AMC will plan itineraries based on a group’s challenge level and limitations, even offering “pep talks,” says hut manager Bethany Taylor. And, while newbies should expect “more of a trip than a vacation,” she says it’s one that ends with a wonderful “sense of accomplishment.”

Taylor notes how a person’s experience in a hut today is almost exactly the same as someone’s 50 years ago. “We wouldn’t have this if the past generations hadn’t done it for us. So I really, really enjoy that sense of being hooked into something larger than myself that is designed to preserve these really beautiful places for others.”

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Cari Shane is a Washington, D.C.–based freelance journalist who specializes in science, medicine and health. Her work can be found in a variety of publications, including Fast Company, Scientific American and Smithsonian.