The cabin in Snowmas Mountain

Up in Snowmass mountain, hidden from the "non-locals" you can find a cabin in the middle of the woods. It was taken there by helicopter about 40 years ago during the construction of one of the chair lifts by a man who used to work in Snowmass called "Mr Sneaky" and that's why it's called "Sneak's Inn". The cabin is not bigger than 20square meters and it is very rudimentary. It has 3 rather long bunk beds where a maximum of 12 people can sleep. The furniture (chairs) are made out of wood in a way that you can still see the logs. There is a small furnace where logs are burnt to produce heat.

The cabin is opened to anybody 365 days a year, there's no need to book it...Anto tells me that so far she's never met another group of people. The people who go there take care of it, they leave some non perishable food, there's some spare jackets, blankets, sleeping bags and shoes.

Anto had always talked to me about this cabin, so when I was in Aspen I definitely wanted to go there. We were 7 of us going there: Greg, Deidree, Murphy, Anto, Gus, Jason and me.

We took the last gondola of the day at 4pm from the bottom of "Fanny hill" in Snowmas mountain. After we went all the way to the top we had to ski a little and then we had to hike for some minutes until we found the cabin, hidden in between some trees.

Even though this was my second time skiing, and I took a one day lesson and I actually improved quite a lot, lets say that I still didn't feel very comfortable at having to ski with a backpack and a sleeping bag. Somehow I managed (and it is amazing if you consider that this was the same day of my previous post...thank God for Gatorade!) but I was really amazed at seeing all the other guys with really big and heavy backpacks and, very importantly, carrying 12-packs of beer :) (check Murphyto on the right)

The hike was a very short one, however the snow was "rotten", this means that every couple of steps one of us would manage to sink a whole leg in the snow. The first time this happened to me, I freaked out a little bit...cause it is very tough to pull it out, and if you are not used to it, it can be a little scary. Of course afterwards I realised that it happened to everyone and that it was just a matter of being patience and careful and eventually you could be back on your feet!

The place was amazing. The guys made a nice fire outside where we sat around while having beers, eating and chatting. Of course the guys are rather hyperactive and they had to find ways to entertain themselves and burn some energy....so they did all kinds of things such us cutting wood, small fights, invent silly little games, sled or chase each other around in the snow! By clicking on the links on the previous sentence you can view small videos!

Once it was dark, and it got a little colder we all went inside. Some of the guys cooked some food, some attempted to play the guitar, some danced ;-), we played some Jenga. We had plenty of fun.

One of the interesting experiences was going trying to pee in the dark. It reminded me of camping in the beach back in Peru...of course there is easier as it is not cold, you don't sink in the snow and somehow you can see a little better. Anto and me would go with the head lamp and some toilet paper....and everything was so still and so quiet and so surrounded by trees....it was kind of scary! However it all looked so nice. We were up in the mountain and the sky looked so big and dark and so full of stars!

The next morning we woke up rather late (at 9am) considering that we were all in bunk beds....it felt a little like being in a pyjama party because we were all talking to each other and we were laughing non stop...I was sleeping in the middle bunk so it was just funny to have someone talking to me from the top bunk and from the bottom one.

After cleaning and tidying up we all skiied down the mountain all the way to "the mall" in Snowmass where we all shared a really nice breakfast.

My visit to the cabin was definitely a really nice experience!