Mountain huts and yurts: Colorado Mechanical Survey Results
Note on Operations:
By Mary Ann DeBoer, Spruce Hole Yurt
Huts and yurts in Colorado and southern Wyoming offer everything from the luxurious to rustic in backcountry, off-the grid living. A 2014 survey of 25 hut and yurt operators from the Colorado Hut and Yurt Alliance, highlights many creative solutions to the everyday problems of providing water, light, heat, sanitation and communication in remote locations. The survey represents 56 huts and 10 yurts that operate on either public or private lands.
The survey and contact information for the hut and yurt systems and owners are included below.
Here are some of the highlights from the survey:
Let There Be Light!
Most of the huts and yurts use a 12 volt or 24 volt solar systems to provide electricity for lighting and basic power. But providing lighting in a remote, often mountainous location, is a challenge in lodging where temperatures can dip down to 20 below zero in the winter and short winter days limit the amount of solar gain. In addition to a solar system, many huts use portable propane lanterns for backup and/or extra lighting.
One hut uses a 48 Volt solar system to power a 110 volt AC system. The Summit Hut Association keeps a gas-powered generator in reserve at each hut, in case they need extra power to charge up batteries for their 24 volt system.
Fixed propane lights are the second most used system with 16 huts/yurts using them. A few huts have an on-grid electrical system.
But the Fire is so Delightful!
What is a hut or yurt without a woodstove or fireplace? Wood heat is the heat source of choice for most of the huts and yurts in the survey. Many of the huts also use passive solar gain in their building design to help keep warm. Maroon hut, an on-grid electrical hut, uses a ground source heat pump and in-floor heating.
Perhaps the most unique heating system is the Opus Hut near Silverton, CO, which uses solar thermal panels augmented by a heating coil in a wood cook stove that charges a hot water reservoir. The reservoir then serves as storage mass for an in-floor heating system.
Water, Water, Everywhere…..
One of the most challenging problems huts and yurts face is how to provide safe drinking water to their customers. To meet this challenge, hut and yurt operators have employed a wide variety of solutions ranging from simply using snow melt water to roof catchment systems or bringing in large storage tanks of water. Most of the huts and yurts use a local source of water, such as a spring, creek or lake, and then snowmelt water in the winter. Many of the huts in the 10th Mountain Association system, have a roof catchment system. Opus Hut uses a roof catchment system to gather water into a 2300 gallon storage tank.
During the summer, many huts either haul in 5 gallon bottles of water for their customers or provide large tanks of water.
Potty Talk………….
While the old-fashioned outhouse is still popular among backcountry lodges, the pit toilet that is pumped out annually is the most popular means of handling human waste. Active composting systems, such as the Phoenix systems, are used at some huts, and a few have complete septic systems with a leach field. The San Juan Hut System uses their own designed and built composting toilets.
Most huts and yurts use a tank and French drain, or a pit to handle gray water.
Keeping in Touch?
Cell phone coverage is spotty to non-existent at most of the backcountry huts and yurts, depending on which cell phone provider is available and where the hut or yurt is located. Many of the huts have some cell phone coverage or can get cell phone service a short distance away. Only a handful of huts provide wifi and have reliable cell phone service.
Pack it Out, and Other Waste Solutions
The old adage for all backcountry users, holds true with huts and yurts: If you “Pack it In, Pack it out”. This is how most huts in the survey handled customer’s trash.
Ashes and food waste are handled differently, though, at some huts/yurts. Several have barrels for ashes from the woodstove, which is then collected and either scattered near the hut/yurt, or taken to a landfill in the summer. San Juan Hut Association, has designed it’s own bear boxes for trash and food waste containment.
A handful of huts haul out some of the trash for their customers, burn some trash, or allow food and cold ashes to be composted in the toilets/outhouse.
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Mary Ann DeBoer is a member of the Colorado Hut and Yurt Alliance, and is co-owner of the Spruce Hole Yurt with her husband Patrick Hogan. The Spruce Hole Yurt (http://www.yurtsogood.com) has been in operation since 1998, and is located on the Rio Grande National Forest in southern Colorado.
Following are links to the spreadsheets with actual survey results: