Holiday Hut Trippin: The Fabi Hut

Nightfall outside the Fabi Hut near Aspen, Colorado.

To keep up what has turned into sort of an aspiring tradition for us, Anna-Lisa and I skinned into the Fabi Hut from Aspen last week and did our best to fill the place with holiday cheer. It was a fun night out as huts are always a unique experience, and cool to visit the other Benedict Hut after spending Christmas Eve at Fritz’s three years ago.

The Benedict Huts are a pair of quaint, relatively new huts that are technically part of the 10th Mountain Division system despite most huts around Aspen belonging to the Braun system. Constructed in 1997, they sit at 11,000 ft atop Smuggler Mountain to the northeast of town and west of Independence Pass. The two huts are named after Fritz and Fabi Benedict, the late husband and wife duo who are largely considered to be the mother and father of the 10th Mountain Division Hut system itself. The Fritz Hut is larger and houses up to 10 people, while the Fabi Hut sleeps 6 and must be booked out by a single party even outside of COVID rules.

A sunny day for the long skin up to the hut.

Starting from the upper-Hunter Creek TH this time around the stats for the approach came out to 5.5 miles and 2,450 ft. Not a huge skin but not short either in the realm of Colorado hut approaches.

A few hours in, getting closer.

We arrived at 4pm, hung our skins, threw some logs on the fire and put our feet up to watch the sunset. It’s always nice to pull into a hut before dark so there’s some time to get your bearings and warm the place up.

The Fabi Hut.

As mentioned previously, it’s pretty much impossible to write about the Benedict Huts without showcasing the outhouse.

Then it was onto dinner and drinks as Anna-Lisa played chef and I played bartender. Steak, potatoes and greens along with Tennessee mule snow cocktails.

The chef at work.

Dinner is served.

Feeling the Yuletide spirit after Anna-Lisa kicked my ass at Scrabble three times.

It was easy to keep the place warm all night as Fabi’s boasts one of the more favorable hearth-to-living space size ratios we’ve seen at a hut to date. Other huts in the past we’ve struggled to keep the temps up when it’s just the two of us but not this time around.

The interior of the hut the next morning.

Breakfast and coffee with another game of Scrabble on the docket. I won finally.

And one more of the outhouse from down below, with Fabi’s back right and Frit’z back left.

After tidying up and completing the checklist we shipped on out and skied back down to town, another successful holiday hut trip in the books.

Merry Christmas!