The Tundra Hut provides access to fantastic skiing around the Leavenworth Basin. One of our guests created a great map documenting some of the many winter powder stashes and spring mountaineering lines in the area. We’ve given a quick overview of what you might find skiing around the hut.
The Hut Lap
Finding powder stashes in the open glades above the Tundra Hut.
Farming powder above the hut.
All the best ski huts in Colorado have a ski run just outside the front door for folks looking to stay close to the woodstove, water, and snacks. The Tundra Hut is no different, just above the hut are several gullies that provide fun terrain and moderate slope angles. If you explore this area you will also find open trees and glade runs. Walking this area in the summer, many of the openings are due to logging in the area, probably in the 1906 season when the railway was built to Waldorf.
Powder Stashes
For those willing to venture a bit further from the hut, crossing Leavenworth Creek to the slopes below Otter Mountain and Wilcox provides great glade runs with a more northerly aspect. This terrain protects fresh snow from the sun keeping it soft in case it hasn’t snowed recently. This is a slightly longer approach but worth it to find the goods.
Ski Mountaineering
Looking at our tracks down Mine Shaft Couloir accessed from the Tundra Hut.
Corn skiing down big spring lines nearby the the hut.
Bootpacking it up the slopes to access the goods!
There are countless ski mountaineering runs that can be accessed from the hut. Most notably from Fritz Sperry’s Making Turns in Colorados Front Range Volume 1: South of Interstate 70 guidebook is Mine Shaft above the old Santiago Mine. In many years, it is not possible to drive to Waldorf until the summer, so guests at the hut generally have these types of runs all to themselves as it is a long approach from Guanella Pass Rd.
