Featured Huts: A tale of two Mt Tahoma Huts

by Sam Demas

Two very different huts captured my fancy on a recent hut trip, so I decided to feature both: High Hut, the first Mt. Tahoma Trail Association (MTTA) hut, and Bruni’s Snow Bowl, recently rebuilt after a fire.   These huts are MTTA’s oldest and newest, smallest and largest, and represent two generations of hut building in one hut system, a remarkable achievement for an all-volunteer operation!  Premier hut-to-hut skiing and in the Cascades.

Each MTTA hut has a distinct personality. This is in part a reflection of the volunteer hut managers, who serve for four years. They in the hut often, frequently staying overnight on weekends, and are responsible for keeping the hut stocked and in good working order. As the hut hosts and caretakers, they are free to decorate and make minor charges, while major changes go before the MTTA Board for approval. For the hut managers, the responsibility is a labor of love, and it shows in the huts.

The original, rustic High Hut

High Hut has a cozy, back-woodsy feel to it. It is intimate, well stocked, modest in its appointments, and quite comfortable. Sleeping eight, it feels like what it is: an old school backwoods hut. The warm and friendly atmosphere is frequently commented upon in the logbooks, and it seems to induce people from different groups mixing well and often sharing meals. High Hut gives visitors a sense of participating in an ancient and universal ritual of mountain hospitality.

The cozy living room, dining room, and kitchen include a bunk bed and a futon couch. Upstairs is a sleeping loft. The kitchen is well equipped and the stove works on propane. The propane heater in the living room uses outdoor air to burn. The temperature setting works on a timer, but he thermostat never goes below 45-50°F in winter. There are separate sleeping quarters for the hut managers/ski patrol. Leyton Jump, the Hut Manager for six years now, is assisted by his wife Karol and their daughter Heidi, who is also on the ski patrol.

Perched on a spectacular site with 360° exposure, the views imbue High Hut with a special mystique: Mt Rainier looming above the hut to the North is a constant presence, even when obscured by clouds; the Olympic Mountain Range off to the East suggesting the ocean; glimpses of Mt. St. Helens and sometimes Mt. Hood on a clear day; Griffith Mountain obscuring a view of the more spectacular Mt Adams; and, on the morning I was there, the surrounding valleys below the hut, including the Nisquali River valley, were filled with a sea of clouds. Sublime beauty!

In 1990, High Hut, MTTA’s first attempt at hut building, was an opportunity to learn some lessons about design for mountain sites. Panels were built in the valley and hauled up for assembly on site and placed on pier blocks. However, the roof of the ante-room blew off the first winter and it became clear the hut exceeded the load capacity of the concrete piers by a factor of 10. Live and learn. They jacked up the hut and put in a concrete foundation, and replaced the roof with stronger materials.

A lean-to style building, the snow slides off and is blown off the roof. The building is well insulated with fiberglass batting and extra insulation blown in, and volunteers have made the building very tight through continual work party efforts. Finally, part of the personality of High Hut is the quirky imperfections often seen in hand-crafted objects. These contribute to High Hut’s comfortable, rustic and serene beauty, which is reminiscent of what the Japanese call Wabi-sabi.

 

Bruni’s Snow Bowl Hut: “The Phoenix rises!”

The original Snow Bowl hut was built in 1991 on the same design as High Hut. It burned in 2008. The effort to design, raise funds, and build a replacement hut on the same site was called Project Phoenix. The new hut that rose from the ashes of a terrible fire is a testament to the resilience and resourcefulness of MTTA and its many friends and volunteers, and the rightness of the idea of a hut system in these mountains.

How did the fire begin? Here is the story pieced together by a number of MTTA veterans, with the help of outside experts. In winter 2008 a flood washed away the bridge that provides access to the forest roads to the huts. No one could get in to check on the huts, plus it was a very heavy snow year. Bob Brown did an airplane reconnaissance after the fire, which showed that a buildup of snow had essentially covered Snow Bowl, with only the chimney showing. The weight of that much snow appears to have shifted the building causing a collapse of a wall and the roof. According to Leyton Jump, the first person to ski in after the fire, a 20” glue laminate beam collapsed onto and crushed a propane stove, which ripped off the propane line. The hut filled with leaking propane from a 1,000 gallon tank, which was eventually ignited by the stove’s pilot light. This caused an explosive fire that destroyed the building.

Three years after the fire MTTA was ready to re-build. The first step was to develop a conceptual plan and cost estimate. After several iterations two volunteers, local custom home builder Ziggy Zlatkus and engineer Tom McKeon, completed a plan. This provided the vision needed to guide fundraising efforts, in which Judy Scavone and others provided leadership. Fortuitously, a bequest by Bruni Wislicenus to the Mountaineers, a Seattle-based outdoors club, appeared to be tailor-made to support rebuilding of the hut. MTTA made its case for funding and the Mountaineer Foundation eventually approved an allocation of $75,000 from the bequest, with the stipulation that MTTA raise an equal amount. The Forest Foundation donated $25,000 with the same stipulation. MTTA volunteers swung into action and raised the matching funds (and more!) from members, friends, and corporate sponsors (including REI, Whittaker Mountaineering, and Caliber Systems). Construction took place over two seasons, overseen by crew leaders Zlatkus and McKeon, and a volunteer construction crew including Henry Romer, Tyler Zlatkus, Rich Walter, and Connie Zlatkus, and many others. The contract for building materials was awarded by competitive bid, and Ziggy points that MTTA is grateful to the supplier, Parr Lumber, for its great work in meeting the needs of the project, which required delivery of materials to a remote site and some difficult logistics.

The finished hut was dedicated to the memory of Bruni Wislicenus, a pioneer in climbing for women in Washington, and an avid backcountry skier and hiker. According to the MTTA Newsletter, “the new hut….honors her generosity, her love of Mt. Rainier, and her spirit of adventure.” The hut has a display of Bruni’s vintage gear and a memorial plaque.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruni’s Snowbowl Hut is three stories high and includes: 1. an above-ground basement level with a workshop, storage space for snow machines, and quarters for two hut managers and two ski patrol volunteers, 2. a spacious, well lit, open-plan first level with a gracious kitchen, dining room, and living room, and 3. upper level bunk rooms accommodating 14 guests.

Now entering its fourth season in operation, the new Snow Bowl hut is sometimes called “the family hut”. The finishes include drywall, tile floors, pictures on the wall, and copious electric lights. It is large enough to comfortably accommodate a number of different groups, with ample couches, comfortable chairs, large dining area, and lots of games and puzzles. The fully equipped kitchen is extremely well provisioned with a large selection of cooking and eating utensils, and a well stocked larder of oatmeal, pancake mixes, spices, and other basic cooking ingredients that guests are free to use.

The roof is designed to shed snow and also aid in collecting snow melt for the water supply. There is an unheated entry room for boot and equipment storage, a detached outhouse, solar panels for electricity, and ample room to accommodate snow removal in winter. According to Ziggy, they might design a future hut a bit shorter, as the peak of the roof is just at the reach of a boom capable of transport to a mountain location. Also, the stairwells are probably wider than they need to be. But overall MTTA is very happy with this new hut, as are the guests who use it.

At 2,400 square feet, the total cost was about $250,000. This “hut” is more like a large condo or a family home than the typical conception of a hut. It is used for MTTA ski patrol trainings, and for meals and celebrations in connection with work parties.

And a lovely outcome, typical of the volunteer magic that characterizes MTTA, is that the builder Ziggy Zlatkus and his wife Connie loved the project so much they volunteered to be hut managers! They live 45 minutes away and thoroughly enjoy their role as hosts and caretakers, and are helping MTTA’s newest hut slowly grow into its own personality.

 

By Sam Demas, this piece is part of a four part series on MTTA, which also includes an operational profile, excerpts on MTTA history and High Hut by Leyton Jump, and a profile of two remarkable volunteers, Bob Brown and Judy Scavone. See these for more detail.