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Four More Places to Take a Hut Hike

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by Krista Meyerhoff

High Sierra Camps

Yosemite National Park, California
559/253-5674; yosemitepark.com; $149 per person, breakfast and dinner included

From July to September, you can backpack to five camps (each with a cluster of canvas tent-cabins), spaced 5 to 10 miles apart. Breakfast and dinner are served at each in a dining tent, and boxed lunches are available on request. Call or apply online by December 31 to enter the reservations lottery. Remaining vacancies are doled out on a first-come, first-served basis; guided multi-day hikes are also available.

10th Mountain Division

Colorado Rocky Mountains, between Vail, Leadville, and Aspen
970/925-5775; huts.org; from $28 per person

These 29 huts are connected by 350 miles of trail, and are open in summer and winter (when hearty types, including families with kids 12 and up, cross-country ski to them). Most are primitive-the kitchen pots are there for melting snow for cooking and drinking water-but the three 4-bedroom cabins connected to Shrine Mountain Inn, reached via a 2.7-mile trail, have a sauna, hot running water, and propane grills. For winter reservations, enter the lottery in March.

San Juan Hut System

The San Juan Range, Rocky Mountains, southwestern Colorado to Moab, Utah
970/626-3033; sanjuanhuts.com; $26 per person in winter, 6-night package from $620 per person in summer

Take a weeklong bike tour in the summer, a guided ski expedition in the winter, or blaze the trails on your own-there are six wooden huts to sleep in along the way. After cross-country skiing the five miles from the trailhead, settle into the eight-bunk Blue Lakes Hut, with a stocked pantry, propane cookstove, and sledding galore.

Sun Valley Trekking

Sawtooth and Smoky Mountains, Idaho
208/788-1966; svtrek.com; $30 per person in winter, $25 per person in summer; winter dinner tour and private-hut rental, $375, food additional $75-$110 per person)

Choose your mode of transport-backcountry skis, snowboard, or snowshoes-and trek with a backcountry guide four to six miles between six huts and yurts (or grab a map and go solo). The Boulder Huts (two connected yurts that can sleep 14) are a 1.5-mile journey from the trailhead-short enough that you can ski in for dinner and ski back under the stars. Eye the area's river otters, mountain goats, and coyotes before your personal chef prepares a meal of barbecued baby back ribs and baked curried brie. If you sign on to spend the night, hit the sauna, then take a roll in the snow.

To find mountain huts throughout Europe, visit hutten.be/UK/index-UK.html and browse locations by country or mountain range.

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