Nature’s spiritual peak

Guided hut-to-hut journey in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains offers sublime days skiing in backcountry, with cozy nights and camaraderie

‘It looks like Canada,” said Nate Disser, our guide, indicating the lofty, snow-cloaked peaks around us. Later that day, when our group of 10 had skied to another highalpine basin where craggy rock monoliths jutted up from ridgelines, Disser noted a resemblance to the Italian Dolomites. Yet we were in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, a spectacular place in its own right.

The San Juans are particularly jagged and steep. Starting in the mid-1800s, miners tore into these peaks hunting for silver and gold, and the remnants of their industry still scar the land. This week, we were hunting only for powdery stashes to ski, and our tracks would disappear with the next snowfall.

We were on the second day of a five-day trip called the Million Dollar Traverse, a hut-to-hut backcountry ski tour. (The name comes from the so-called Million Dollar Highway, a serpentine stretch of U.S. Route 550 that runs between the Colorado towns of Ouray and Silverton.) The comparisons

to Canada and Europe were apt in another sense, too, as guided ski trips like the one we were on are common in those locales.

I’m an avid backcountry skier who usually prefers self-organized outings. But more than 20 years ago, I skied the Haute Route, a hut-to-hut trek in France and Switzerland, with a guided group,

and I was curious to see what a version of it would be like closer to home.

San Juan Mountain Guides, owned by Disser, began offering the traverse a couple of winters ago. The trip includes four nights in three privately owned huts, with 6 to 8 miles of skiing and some 3,500 feet of elevation gain between each one. Though it’s hard work to

climb up and over the mountain passes, the payoff is descending thousands of feet of untracked snow among soul-stirring scenery.

“We’re such a DIY culture,” said Disser. “In Europe or Canada, you go to a hut, you get a guide.” But if the Million Dollar Traverse is any indication, the concept of going with a guide may be catching on here. As of mid-november, all slots were booked for the trip, which is offered five times in spring 2024.

Most backcountry huts in the United States are simple, selfservice structures, with skiers packing their own sleeping bags and food, and melting snow on a wood stove for water. But several newer huts clustered in the mountains between Ouray and Silverton have staff on hand to provide meals, beds with blankets, running water and indoor bathrooms. This also means you can ski with a lighter backpack, carrying just a change of clothes for the evening, snacks and water, and safety gear such as a shovel and avalanche probe.

When our group — eight skiers and two guides — gathered at the San Juan Mountain Guides office in Ouray one morning in early April, it was 10 degrees and new snow dusted the ground. Though the state’s ski resorts were winding down their seasons, plenty of snow still covered the peaks, the result of a particularly generous winter.

Disser and another guide, Patrick Ormond (both certified by the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations), showed some slides of our route, much of it above the tree line, and talked about safety. We’d all have alpine touring gear, with climbing skins that we’d stick to the bottom of our skis for traction during ascents. And we’d each wear a

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MATTHEW DEFEO NYT PHOTOS A group of hut-to-hut skiers, led by Nate Disser with San Juan Mountain Guides, on the approach to Red Mountain No. 3, south of Ouray, Colo.

A group meets at Red Mountain Alpine Lodge before a long day of skiing and climbing in the San Juan Mountains. Climbs on these multiday, guided treks are daunting. The skiing? Exhilarating.