An American Take on Wilderness Huts

Aspire offers an inspired and uniquely American take on the European tradition of wilderness huts.

In Europe, where recreational mountain travel started, and where there are comparatively few public lands, there is a long tradition of hut systems to support hikers, skiers and backcountry travelers. In the Alps, the Dolomites, Norway, and in a few other places, there are elaborate networks of staffed huts, hyttes and refugios—often private— that offer mountain travelers housing, food, and support across all seasons.

In Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park, you can expect to finish a long day hiking the mountain tundra at a cabin where you eat in a dining room full of Norwegians eating reindeer sausage in wool sweaters. If you’re hiking around Mont Blanc, you might stop
at a Refugio for espresso and charcuterie, or you might share a bottle of wine with hikers from across the continent. But in the United States, where our mountains are often in designated public lands and wilderness areas that preclude construction, there are only a handful of hut systems inspired by the European model.

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In New Hampshire, the Appalachian Mountain Club has maintained a linked series of high mountain huts since the late nineteenth century, and there is also a newer, smaller hut system in the north woods of Maine. In Colorado, there are a dozen 10th Mountain Division Huts that mainly appeal to backcountry skiers. The Alpine Club of Canada maintains backcountry huts, mostly in the Canadian Rockies. There are a handful of other hut systems here and there: one in Utah that is designed for mountain bikers, a series of ski huts in Quebec’s Chic Choc Mountains. But that’s not much, considering the wide range of
stunning beautiful backcountry landscapes that North America has to offer.

That’s where Aspire comes in, essentially re-creating the backcountry staffed hut experience for runners, but in a leave-no-trace way that is lighter and more flexible. Want to wake up to having breakfast cooked for you? Need guidance on your route for the next day? Are you hoping to plan a multiday trip without staying up until midnight to
(hopefully!) get one of a few limited permits on a certain date? Want to take a hot shower when you’re done for the day? Aspire does all that, but with mobile tent camps that move quickly and lightly, only staying at a given location for a night or a few nights.

Aspire offers runners an opportunity to travel deep into some of North America’s premier backcountry areas with support, where you don’t have to carry a full pack or set up drop bags ahead of time, but instead you’re free to fully focus on the experience of moving through big, wild landscapes. Aspire removes the friction of permits, logistics, and planning, and then smooths out the experience even more with great food, van rides from the airport, personalized attention, and even education around backcountry skills.

Highly skilled guides are out on the trail in support during the day while other guides are back in camp cooking and coordinating communications. Maybe the best part is the community. When you arrive at an Aspire trip, you can guarantee that you’ll share camp time and trail time with likeminded runners who care about health, conservation, adventure, creativity, and all the good things.

As a guide who has led everything from whitewater rafting to tours of Asia, I can say that Aspire guiding is wonderful, not just because of the places, but mostly because of the resilient, motivated, agentic, fun people that always come on Aspire trips. This is so much like the huts across Europe and elsewhere, where you share undistracted fascinating
conversations with complete strangers in beautiful places. It’s a rare gift in this distracted, digitally siloed world.

When you think about it, Aspire’s model is very American: it is flexible, creative and mobile. It honors and supports public lands and wilderness. As Aspire pivots and offers new trips in places like Joshua Tree and the Grand Canyon, as it starts to add painting and art to offerings, it shows a spirit that is truly American and is something that brick- and-mortar huts in Sweden and Italy, for all of their beautiful longstanding traditions, can’t do.

Aspire is creating a new North American model of supported backcountry travel. As we increasingly pay attention to our impact in a rapidly changing world, maybe moving lighter, faster, and more flexibly is a good way to go. If you can get fresh coffee, a comfy bed, and a hot shower along with lifelong memories and community, doesn’t everyone win?

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