Brief History of the Rendezvous Huts, oldest in the West!
By Sam Demas and Charles Hickenbottom
This is a companion piece to history of the Methow Valley Trails system, which operates hand in glove with Rendezvous Huts and other businesses and organizations in the area. Together they maintain and operate a remarkable Nordic skiing trail and lodging system in the East Cascades, which is based on an unusually high degree of cooperation across the community.
These are notes towards a hut system history that deserves to be known in the world of huts. This piece was compiled from Hickenbottom’s analysis of the brochures and maps of the hut system from its founding to the present, his interviews with the three sets of hut owners over time, and from Demas’ interviews/correspondence with Ben Nelson, Don Portman, Jay Lucas, and Dale Caufield. Hickenbottom is working on a book on the history and development of the Methow Valley Trail system as a whole, which will include more detail on the hut system than is provided here. In particular, his careful analysis of brochures and maps provide a detailed sense of the changes in the names and locations of the huts over time, and changes in location and nature of the trails and their skiing characteristics, which have remained fairly constant in their location on forest roads.
Unless otherwise noted, quotes below are all from Hickenbottom’s work.
Diamond T Ranch, 1981 – 1985
Ed (Enoch) and Rita (Chandra) Kraft moved to the Methow Valley and purchased in the late 1970’s a 285-acre abandoned farm by Little Cub Creek, about 10 miles from Winthrop at the end of Rendezvous Road. Though this hippie couple apparently had means, they chose to plant an alfalfa field, and start a family and business “off the grid” with no phone, an outhouse and hand pumped water. The name “Diamond T Ranch” came from a wild ride and hospitality:
Rita recalled she and Ed were hitchhiking to San Francisco in the mid 1970s. They were picked up by the driver of a Diamond T trucking rig along I-5 in Oregon and were off for the ride of their lives. Rita described it as “an eye-opening ride with a pill-popping driver doing a speed run to get home for his daughter’s birthday. Black sheep of his family, he became a trucker: sawed off shot gun in the back, garbage out the window, a heart of gold, feeding us with food and tales all the way to San Francisco! And in honor of that wild ride, the name Diamond T Ranch came to be”.
The Krafts quickly became intrigued by the potential offered by a confluence of factors: superb terrain and weather for Nordic skiing, the development of the N. Cascades Highway and tourism in the region, and a flourishing of Nordic skiing operations.
The Krafts saw the blending of groomed cross country trails and tourism happening elsewhere in the Methow Valley. Jack Wilson was grooming trails north of Early Winters Cabins (now, Freestone Inn). Don Portman groomed a portion of the Methow Trail south of Sun Mountain Lodge and a system of trails at Sun Mountain in conjunction with the Methow Valley Ski School. Dick Hamel groomed trails on both sides of Highway 20 near his Virginian Motel (now, Virginian Resort) in Winthrop. Dave Schulz was grooming trails on both sides of Highway 20 near his Idle-A-While Motel in Twisp.
The terrain surrounding the Diamond T Ranch was great for skiing, but they needed permits and infrastructure to open lodging and a ski operation. They purchased a used snowmobile and a track setter, plowed a parking lot, and started grooming trails. On January 31, 1981 Diamond T Ranch hosted the inaugural Loppet race of the Methow Valley Ski Trails Association (MVSTA). In the 1981/82 ski season their first brochure promoted one hut and 24 miles of groomed trails, and a guide service.
[In fall 1981] Ed and Rita Kraft … applied to the US Forest Service for a special-use permit to operate a guide service and a backcountry hut. A commercial hut was a new type of business on Forest Service land. Elton Thomas, then Winthrop district ranger, recalled that the Forest Service was dealing with cleaning up a lot of mining claims that were actually developed with structures more for recreation. He recalled that the special-use permit was reluctantly issued to the Krafts, but structures were not allowed to being permanent. According to Rita Kraft, “We built the huts with panels so they could be hauled on a flatbed truck.” This would make the Rendezvous Huts the first hut system in the Western USA, started a year or two before the Tenth Mountain Division Huts and the San Juan Huts.
The accommodations were rudimentary, but they were in business. There was not mechanism for collecting trail use fees for day use, but they were allowed to charge for gear shuttle service to the huts. Meanwhile, some of the neighbors were not happy with the traffic and began to complain that the ski operation was not in compliance with Okanogan County ordinances. They didn’t have a motel license or proper zoning, and the road was too narrow to support the traffic. But they were optimistic and planned to expand the operation to include a summer educational camp for kids.
Long story short, the county commissioners: turned down the proposals for both the camp and a ski center with lodging (it would require the Kraft’s to widen the road at their own expense), but were OK with the huts. Diamond T Ranch became the trailhead parking for the ski trails and hut system, which included 40 km of trails and 3 huts by 1983: Rendezvous Hut, Fawn Hut (which connected to MVSTA’s trails), and Cub Creek Hut.
In 1984-85 the operation removed Fawn Hut (too far for most people to ski to) and added two new huts (Overview Hut and Little Cub Creek Cabin, which was electrified), for a total of 3 huts and a cabin. The Krafts abandoned the klunky to-way radio systems for taking reservations and relied on Central Reservations to handle bookings. But one neighbor continued to complain and in Spring 1985 Okanogan County “…..placed an injunction on Diamond T Ranch for failure to comply with zoning ordinances.” After five years of operation they still had an outfitter permit to operate rental huts on Forest Service lands, but it was a hard go.
Summer,1985 found Ed and Rita Kraft at the crossroads. Rita described it as a change of life decision for a family with young kids. The Rendezvous Outfitters permit with the Forest Service was transferred to employee Steve Farmer and local friend Dale Caulfield. Sold to them was the business which consisted of three huts, a snowmobile, and a grooming implement….A few years later they sold the Diamond T Ranch, ending a fascinating era in the history of cross country skiing in the Methow Valley.
It seems that the Kraft’s were a bit ahead of their time, or at least ahead of Okanagan County. The early 1980’s was when the Tenth Mountain Division Huts and the San Juan Huts in Colorado were started. These groups also experienced obstacles in Colorado at the time. While they wearied of the hassles and made a lifestyle change, what Ed and Rita Kraft started at Diamond T Ranch continued to evolve under new ownership and changing conditions, and still thrives today as Rendezvous Huts.
Rendezvous Outfitters, 1985 – 1996
Steve Farmer and Dale were partners from 1985-1988, at which point Dale purchased Steve’s share and continued to run the business until 1996. Beginning in the 1985/86 season the main trailhead was no longer at Diamond T Ranch, but at Cub Creek, were it remains today. Early in their tenure a daily trail pass fee of $4 per day was implemented. Beginning in 1987/88 their brochure was titled “Hut to Hut Touring”, clearly signaling that they envisioned a European-style system of huts that was skied in sequence over a period of days. In 1987/88 there were four huts.
The brochure’s persuasive text was directed towards a target audience of cross-country skiiers that were willing to pay for groomed trails and enjoyed rustic lodging. The small regional map that showed the way to the Methow Valley from State Highway 2 was evidence that the majority of these folks were coming frome the Puget Sound area for vacations and long weekends….Caufield remembered that he and Jay Lucas traveled to the greater Seattle area to deliver brochures to various locations. According to Irwin, this type of distribution was later done by a complex web of jobbers…The resourceful Caufield recalled that in 1988 he purchased some surplus outhouses from the Forest Service and recycled them for use at his Rendezvous huts.
By 1988 the Forest Service was giving priority to winter recreation over resource extraction and the location of trails and huts was less affected by seasonal logging. Sometime in the late 1980’s the business had established sufficient track record and credibility that the Forest Service no longer required annual removal of the huts at the end of ski season. This is a typical pattern in the granting of USFS Special Use Permits for hut systems. Of soft-walled construction, it required frequent visits to remove snow, and in 1995 it collapsed from snow load and was removed.
In 1989 the Panther Basin Hut was located at high elevation to cater to backcountry skiers who wanted access to steeper slopes. There is mention of helicopter access to Panther Basin Hut. In 1995 the Gardner hut was built, bringing the total to five huts. In 1990 Rendezvous Outfitters stopped producing their own maps and brochure, joining forces with Methow Valley Sports Trails Association (MVSTA) to use their consolidated map and to advertise in their brochure. This appears to be the beginning of the joint marketing of trails and lodging that is the unique feature of the Methow Valley. In a 1995 three part MVSTA brochure each of the three component trails systems was subtly identified with its own coniferous cone: Engleman Spruce for Rendezvous cover, Douglas Fir on Mazama cover, and Ponderosa Pine on the Sun Mountain over. By 1995 the map shows that the MVSTA trail system was now completely inter-connected, the fulfillment of a long-term dream of the founders.
The job visiting the huts to deliver supplies nearly daily was labor-intensive and Dale eventually got burned out on it. The Caufield’s sold their house in the Valley but still spend time there; they have a box full of newspaper articles and documents concerning the hut system.
Dale Caufield had been the sole owner of Redezvous Outfitters since 1989, the year that Steve Farmer signed off on the special use permit that Rendezvous Outfitters had with the Forest Service. Caufield sold the business to Dave Dewbrey, Phil and Carol Heitman, and Jay Lucas in 1996. Dewbrey sold his share to Bennett and Cathy Upper in 1997.
Rendezvous Huts, 1996 – 2013
Jay Lucas recalls the decision to purchase the hut system because it was such a perfect and integral partnership to the MVSTA, of which he was Executive Director. He wanted to be sure the hut system remained in the hands of folks who would value and continue the huts and trails partnership.
The partners worked out a good division of labor, with the Uppers in charge of day-to-day operations, and the Hietman’s in charge of maintenance and reservations. Reservations were turned over to a local bookings firm, Central reservations, in 2000. Lucas, still Executive Director of MVSTA, was responsible for maintaining the permit and the relationship with the Forest Service and attended to business matters. Lucas reports that this partnership was “one of those rare things in life that worked really well.”
Due to its more remote location, Fawn Hut was always the least used hut in the system. Instead of moving it, they decided to build Grizzly Hut in 2007. Lucas reports that, as with Caufield, “The original idea was to ski hut-to-hut, European style, but it turned out that most people really wanted to stay in one place and ski from there.” This is consistent with reports from Tenth Mountain Division and some other Colorado hut systems that started with the idea of hut-to-hut but found most users have a preference for hut as base camp.
By this time the huts had a dedicated following, and Lucas reports that up to 85% of bookings were by repeat customers.
Steady growth of mountain-biking in the valley resulted in single track trails by the Rendezvous Huts and opening the huts to summer use.
Rendezvous Huts Today: Ben and Virginia Nelson, 2013 –
When the time came for the Lucas/Upper/Heitman partnership to sell, they were committed to finding a buyer that would carry on with the same cooperative spirit that makes the Methow Valley Trails so successful, would take pride in the system, and stick around. In an interview with the Methow Valley News (April 25, 2013), Jay Lucas said, “We are very, very happy with the people who are buying it. The huts are such a big part of the valley’s history, and we felt it really needed the right people to continue the tradition. We got the right people for the job….Of all the people who came to look at the business, {the Nelsons} impressed us the most. In a five day visit they asked us all the pertinent questions.”
Ben, Virginia, and their now two-year-old son, Oliver, purchased the business for $190,000 in April 2013. Hailing from Fairbanks, Alaska, they often visited Winthrop area to see family and loved the terrain and community. Ben, an avid trail runner, likes to build and renovate. He has a part-time job in town as a brewer at the Old Schoolhouse Brewery.
Ben reports that they don’t really need to advertise and have an 80% occupancy rate in winter. Business has grown dramatically and is expanding into fat-tire biking in the snow season and increased biking and hiking in the shoulder seasons. He reports that about 70% of their business is from Western Washington. They are thinking about adding ski instruction and guiding services, which are within the scope of their Forest Service permit.
While their first year of operation was tough, with a fire and poor snow cover (see Spokesman-Review article for a good interview story), they persevered and the Rendezvous tradition carries on in good hands.