A Perfect Blend -- After Going Downhill For Years, Skiing Returns To Its Roots - Crossing Country

It started as travel. Then it became sport. Now it's possible to experience skiing as pure travel again - on special shoes gliding over a white landscape from here to there.

We know about the early days from cave paintings of Norwegian skiing hunters and from an actual 4,000-year-old ski, dug up out of a peat bog near Hoting, Sweden. Skis made it possible for ancient, snowbound northerners to gather food and firewood, to trade from village to village, and simply to visit from house to house.

In the mid-1800s, emigrating Scandinavians brought their long, wooden ``snow shoes'' and their elegant telemark turn with them to the New World, to the wintry climes of the Upper Midwest and to the gold camps in the mountains of the Rockies and California.

In some communities, doctors made house calls on skis. Children used them to slide to school. In Colorado, Father John Dyer skied through storm and sun to bring the word of God to isolated mining camps. In California, in the 1850s, John A. ``Snowshoe'' Thompson carried the mail over the Sierras on skis, the sole winter land link between northern California and the rest of the nation.

But with the evolution of uphill transportation - ski trains, rope tows, T-bars and finally the chair lift - and the revolution in leisure time, and with roads linking virtually every rural community, skiing changed from a necessity into elegant play.

Alpine skiing is married to fashion and high technology. Skiers in the latest colors swish down machine-groomed snow carpets and ride back up in high-speed, detachable quad chairs. Since the middle of this century, alpine, or downhill, skiing has almost eclipsed the original notion of skiing as a way to cross country.

But cross-country skiing didn't die and is now enjoying a renaissance, so much so that winter trail systems are popping up everywhere there is reliable snow. You can ski inn-to-inn in New Hampshire, from town-to-town in Washington's Methow Valley, and hut-to-hut along the Appalachian Trail.

One of the best of the new trails is the 10th Mountain Hut and Trail System in the heart of Colorado. Aspen architect Fritz Benedict conceived the idea of a wilderness route connecting Aspen with Vail, 40 miles north as the crow flies.

Now, a decade after organizing the nonprofit 10th Mountain Trail Association (TMTA), Benedict can count more than 250 miles of trail in a rough circle around the Holy Cross Wilderness and at least 14 back-country huts and inns where ski travelers may spend the night on soft bunks in wood-stove-heated comfort.

The entire project is a memorial to the men of the 10th Mountain Division, much-decorated alpine troops who trained at Camp Hale northeast of Aspen in 1942-44. A number of the soldiers fell in love with the mountains and returned after the war to form the nucleus of Colorado's fledgling ski industry. Benedict was among them, as was Vail founder Pete Siebert and Aspen Ski Co. pioneer Friedl Pfeifer.

But beyond honoring the veterans, Benedict had in mind the re-creation of a timeless, classless ski experience. The huts, he says, ``are helping to preserve the kind of simple enjoyment of the mountains that prevailed before our super resorts became so fashionable.''

I joined a group in early April for a four-day sortie onto the trail, which is set up so that each hut is a day's ski from the next. In addition, every hut is accessible in one day from a plowed trail head. So trips into the loop can be of any length - from a single overnight, in and out to any one of the huts, to a marathon linking all the huts, a mini-expedition of up to two weeks.

You can ski the trail alone if you are practiced in the back-country arts of map and compass, or you can hire a guide from Aspen or Vail. Strong intermediate cross-country skiers can handle the terrain, but the TMTA screens all applicants and suggests bringing at least one experienced back-country skier along.

Our group left Aspen under overcast skies and started climbing up the U-shaped valley of Hunter Creek. We quickly fell in line and rhythm behind guide Buck Elliot. He set what seemed like an easy pace for the eight of us, slow but dogged in light of the 2,000 vertical feet we would gain to the first hut.

I settled into the train: slide foot forward, hear the click of my boot in the free-heel binding; feel the sure grip of the nylon climbing skins on the bottom of my skis; slide the other foot forward; poke holes in the deep snow beside the track with my poles; listen to the quiet without and the hum of my breathing and heartbeat within, working hard and well at 8,500 feet; sense the city, its pace and power, dropping off behind.

(The nylon ``skins'' are a modern-day adaptation of something ancient skiers learned: that animal pelts, particularly seal skins, affixed to their ski bases made skiing uphill much easier. With the nap pointing back toward the tails, the ski would glide forward but not slip back, as the fur caught and held the snow.)

We stopped for lunch at a place called Van Horn Park, a rounded-pure-white ridge, like a piece of polished marble surrounded by bare-branched aspens. A light snow fell straight down through the windless air. We sat in a circle on our packs, the snow plinking on our nylon shoulders and wool hats. The two guides spread lunch out on a tarp: hard salami, cheese, bagels, butter and peanut butter, carrots and celery, apples and oranges, chocolate bars.

Large chunks of time went by without anyone speaking. Behind us in the distance, the manicured trails of the ski slopes at Aspen blended with other peaks, looking like just one more whitecap in a stormy Japanese wood-block print. Finally, one skier said, ``The pristineness kinda gets to ya.''

Four hours later we were at the McNamara Hut, lighting stoves and melting snow in big pots for drinking and cooking. The guides are masters of the one-pan meal - simple, hearty fare cooked in big iron skillets on wood stoves.

TMTA provides cooking utensils and mattresses in the huts; the firewood is stocked by local families during fall wood-chopping weekends. One benefit of going with guides is that they stock the cabins with their own provisions, wine and sleeping bags in the fall so clients need carry only extra clothing and personal gear. The lighter the pack, the freer you are to revel in the skiing.

Robert McNamara, secretary of defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and past head of the World Bank, donated the money for the first two huts in the system. A part-time Aspenite and avid back-country skier, he dedicated the McNamara and Margy's huts to his late wife Margaret, ``one of God's loveliest creatures,'' according to plaques on the golden, rough-cut spruce walls.

Most of the huts are built of spruce logs (one is made of stone picked up on the site), and all are designed to be a functional blend of Colorado mine-cabin architecture and the multi-story efficiency of Alpine huts along the Chamonix-to-Zermatt Haute Route.

Day 1 of our trek had carried us six miles over the snow. Day 2 would cover more than eight miles through a foot of new snow, with a descent into big old-growth trees, then a long pull up another 2,000 vertical feet to Margy's Hut at 11,300 feet.

The hut came into view, half-buried by its own snowdrift. We were greeted by a hutmate, shirtless, feet up, sipping a whiskey and reading a paperback on the deck. Otherwise, we had the 16-bed, two-story cabin to ourselves.

That evening we donned skis again and shuffled out onto the ridge to watch the sun set. We watched in silence as row after row of jagged peaks caught the peach-colored rays. Our shadows stretched out beside those of standing dead snags, totems from a long-ago burn. Behind us the rising moon gave an electric white edge to the mountain-sky horizon.

Jean, a curator at a Boston-area museum and a veteran of groomed track skiing in New England but not mountains this big, was stunned by the emotion in the wildness. In her 60s, she had worried aloud about her ability to do this trip, saying things like, ``There's no fool like an old fool. But there are so many wonderful things to do on our planet . . . Why not try them before getting too decrepit!''

And there she was at 11,300 feet, staring down at the orange disc. Its otherworldly light washed her face while the new night cold crept around the edges of our euphoria, like an aroma drawing us back to the hut. ``I could never describe this to my friends in Florida,'' Jean said in a whisper that seemed only natural. ``They just couldn't conceive of it.''

After dinner, while the fire ebbed in the stove, we washed dishes and split kindling for the next group, while gaiters and mittens dried on wall pegs, and candlelight flickered over the wooden tables in the living room. We were family now; conversation revealed personal secrets.

Buck, a Colorado native, brought involuntary shivers with tales of snow-cave camping not far from this spot back when only a handful of hard-core winter travelers dared venture more than a day tour beyond town. ``The huts are the bridge,'' he said, ``the comfort and safety that allow people who never would to experience the magic of these mountains.''

Next day was a rest/play day. We didn't have to go anywhere, but after a breakfast of buckwheat-and-nut pancakes, we took off for the summit of Mount Yeckel, about a mile-and-a-half away. A blazing sun worked on the new snow, shrinking it, compacting it, allowing us to walk up on top.

Mark and Deb, confirmed alpine skiers, found a cornice where prevailing winds had piled the snow into a six-foot wave with a curling lip across the top. Again and again they soared off that lip, briefly in flight, only to splat down in the soft snow at its base. We had to drag them away.

At Yeckel's gentle 11,765-foot summit, for the first time, we could see most of the country the trail encircles. Back south 16 miles was the valley of the Roaring Fork and Aspen. East was the monumental fastness of the Holy Cross Wilderness, and behind it the seven huts on the eastern branch of the system.

To the north lay the Harry Gates and Peter Estin huts, the former named in memory of a 10th Mountain Division soldier killed overseas, and the latter a family tribute to a top American ski racer in the 1940s and '50s. Closer in, we looked down 10 miles into the valley of the Frying Pan River on the Diamond J Guest Ranch, a private stop on the route where we would find roof and sauna for the next night.

With nowhere to go but down, Buck gave a telemark lesson. He showed how, in this revival of a 150-year-old turn, the front foot strides ahead and initiates the direction change. And the back foot, bearing as much weight as possible, is the keel. A telemarker resembles nothing so much as a knight in mid-genuflection before his queen.

Everyone got it in his own fashion. Franny, who once taught ballroom dancing, pointed her toes and drew slow-curving gouges like a sculptor working in clay. Jamie, a retired electrical engineer and science teacher, swished around his right corners with a remarkable elan, but usually managed to lean too far in on his left turns. Mark applied the leverage of speed to his turns with enthusiastically mixed results. Deb completed a set of snaky linked turns.

Buck watched for the thousandth time and said: ``That's it. That's the thing I like most about taking people out here - the letting go.'' Whereupon he dove his modern ``snow shoes'' into the pitch, fast and swooping, and let forth a piercing ``Ya hoo hoo hoo!'' like a delirious owl. It was the perfect blending of travel and sport, an uncompromised synthesis in the thin, crystalline air.

Peter Shelton, who skied on the America team in Le Raid Blanc in Zermatt in 1986, is the author of ``The Insiders Guide to the Best Skiing in Utah'' and is working on ``The Skier's Bible'' (Doubleday, scheduled for fall 1991). He lives outside Telluride, Colo.

Copyright 1990 Peter Shelton

Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate

If you go hut-to-hut

The 10th Mountain Huts are open from late November to early April. The huts sleep an average of 16 people each and may be booked by a single group or shared. Holiday weekends fill up fast, often months in advance. Midweeks and late season, you may have the huts to yourselves.

Overnight fees are $18 per person per night. Fees are slightly higher at the private accommodations along the route with correspondingly luxurious amenities including hot water, hot tubs, cooked meals and, in some cases, bedding provided.

The TMTA Central Reservations phone is 1-303-925-5775, or you can write TMTA at 1280 Ute Ave., Aspen, CO 81611. Those interested in less spartan accommodations might try the Diamond J Guest Ranch, 26604 Frying Pan Road, Meredith, CO 81642; phone 1-303-927-3222. Private rooms are $24 per night per person or $28 with full linens.

TMTA also handles bookings for the six Fred Braun huts (an older, more rustic system south of Aspen) and for the Friends Hut on the route between Aspen and sister resort Crested Butte.

Topographic maps and recommended equipment lists are available from TMTA. An excellent guide book, ``Colorado 10th Mountain Trails'' by Louis W. Dawson II, is also available through the association.

Guide services are available from Paragon Guides, Box 130, Vail, CO 81658; telephone 1-303-949-4272; and Elk Mountain Guides, Box 10327, Aspen, CO 81612; phone 1-303-927-9377.