Category Archives: Architecture/design

Backcountry Hut Company: Architectural Design & Business Model

Backcountry Hut Company: Architectural Design & Business Model

by Sam Demas, October 12, 2016; All photos courtesy Backcountry Hut Company

The Canadian company Backcountry Hut Company (BHC) has completed its design and has constructed a prototype for a pre-fabricated, modular hut system. The design is optimized for alpine and other outdoor clubs, lodge operators, and also private outdoor recreation enthusiasts.  Based on a conversation with BHC’s Wilson Edgar, this post is a brief description of the design concept, business model, and rollout plans.

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Grand Huts Association: $100,000 expansion grant

Congratulations!  According to an article in the SkyHiDaily News,  a major grant from private donors will help fund the second hut in The Grand Huts Association.

Their first hut (the Broome Hut pictured here), which took 15 years to get permitted and built, was completed in 2012 at a cost of $400,000.  Located in a remote location with excellent back country skiing, materials were delivered to the site by helicopter.  The hut is very popular and operates close to full capacity in winter and at about half-capacity in summer.  Located on US Forest Service Land near Winter Park Colorado, the Grand Huts association hopes to eventually grow to 5-7 huts, creating a hut-to-hut system from Berthoud Pass to Grand Lake in Grand County.

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Outdoor Society argues for more huts in USA

Mathias Eichler, outdoors advocate and editor of the Outdoor Society blog, grew up in the foothills of the Alps.  He can’t understand why there are not more huts in USA, his beloved adopted land.  He is a great fan of our National Parks and advocate for recreational use of public land. {Featured image courtesy Mathias Eichler}

In two posts (click on titles in excerpts below) he discusses his ideas.  In an editorial “Whats next for America’s Public Lands?” he presents a case for more huts on public lands.  A separate piece “Eight Huts we need in the Mountains of the American West” presents brief profiles, accompanied by great pictures, of some huts he admires.

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Hut-to-hut skiing: a tale of two Mt. Tahoma Huts

Featured Huts: A tale of two Mt Tahoma Huts

by Sam Demas

 

 

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Mt. Tahoma — High Hut and MTTA Notes on History and Operations

Spring 2012, Karly Siroky, High Hut Manager.

High Hut Trail Guide Excerpts

Notes kindly compiled by Leyton Jump, Manager of High Hut, Mt. Tahoma Trails Association

OUR MISSION

2005

The Mt. Tahoma Trails Association operates and manages for public use a year-round hut-to-hut trail system adjacent to the slopes of Mt. Rainier, offering trail users of differing skill levels and economic backgrounds a safe and inspirational backcountry experience. MTTA leadership maintains a functional working partnership with all stakeholders (MTTA members, trail users, volunteers, and our host land owners) based on mutual trust and honesty. Volunteers provide labor to achieve this mission.

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More hut-to-hut hiking in USA? Part 2: Challenges

by Sam Demas

Creating more opportunities for people to use huts to support long distance hiking, biking, skiing is a complex undertaking.  If not done well, the potential for doing environmental harm is as great as the potential for doing educational and recreational good.

Part 1 of this article outlined the potential benefits. Part 2 outlines the challenges in thoughtfully regulating, siting, creating, and operating hut systems. Future posts will provide greater detail in many of these areas, and the operational profiles on this site provide information on how specific hut systems handle these challenges.  The audience for this piece is young people planning or dreaming of starting a hut system; it may also interest recreation planners and land managers.

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Shikoku Pilgrim Shelters – vernacular hut architecture

Check out these pictures of a form of vernacular architecture for pilgrims!  My acupuncturist friend Kazuhiro Watase returns to Japan every year for a pilgrimage walk.  Turning 60 this year he is treating himself to three walks!  Knowing of my interest in huts and shelters he kindly sent me photographs of some of the very simple shelters along the Shikoku Pilgrimage, where most pilgrims stay in one of the 88 temples visited on the walk, or in local guest houses.  On his next walk he will send pictures of the temples and guest houses.

These simple shelters are for those looking for  free places for resting and sleeping  The are mostly open-air shelters.  Most do not have running water, mattresses, or other amenities, but are perfect for backpackers.  The shelters are cared for by locals and other pilgrims.

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Featured Hut: New Monte Rosa Hut, Swiss Alpine Club

by Sam Demas

This glittering, crystalline structure changes the aesthetic paradigm and technical concept of Alpine lodging.  A technologically sophisticated building, the New Monte Rosa Hut sets a new standard for hut design and is an exemplar of design for self-sufficiency in remote places.   It is located at an altitude of 2,883 meters, above the Gorner glacier and near the the Matterhorn and Dufourspitze, Switzerland’s highest peak.  It is at least 90% self-sufficient in meeting its energy needs and is said to be 65% self-sufficient overall (alas, it cannot  grow its own food!).

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