Opus Hut Backcountry Skiing Trip, Silverton, Colorado
Mike and I headed to the Opus Hut to meet some friends for a 3 day/2 night backcountry skiing trip. The Opus Hut is located in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, near Ophir Pass in Silverton, CO. It had been a great spring ski season thus far so we were excited to ski the terrain around the hut, most of which seemed like it needed a stable snowpack in order to ski with confidence.
The friends we were meeting at the hut went in the night before us (our schedule didn’t allow us to do this) so we decided to head in to the hut very early the following morning. We parked at the trailhead and began skinning up the road towards the hut. The majority of the road was still covered with snow, but there were still a few sections where we had to take our skis off and walk. After 3.5 miles and 1600 ft of elevation gain, we made it to the hut. Our friends had already went out skiing for the day, but we were able to contact them over our radio and knew the direction they were headed. We quickly dropped off some extra gear we didn’t need for skiing at the hut and headed up towards Crystal Lake.
We found a group of over 10 people skiing together. We did a lap in the bowl above Crystal Lake and found the snow still had a solid winter consistency. After this lap, we decided to head up and over a ridge and explore a different face. We ended up dropping in on something a little more east facing and found some traditional spring corn. At the bottom of this run, it was early afternoon, and we knew we still had 1100 feet of elevation gain to skin back up to the hut so Mike and I along with some others decided to head back to the hut for the day.
After making it back to the hut, we decided to hang out and relax and play some cards for the rest of the day. One of my favorite parts about the Opus Hut is that an afternoon apres ski soup is provided and dinner is also included. It was really nice not having to eat traditional hut food and have to carry all of our food in! I found the food to be quite good. That night, we decided that we would break into smaller groups to ski the following day so that decisions could be made more quickly, leading to the ability to ski more that day.
The following morning, Mike and I set out with some new friends, Kat and Hans, with the goal of hopefully skiing a line or two in Paradise Basin. We headed out towards Paradise Basin and skied a still very firm south face on our way over to Paradise. We then picked out a line to skin up that was northeast facing and wasn’t filled with avalanche debris. We found it was warming more quickly than expected so it was heavier to ski down than I had hoped. Once we got to the bottom, we decided that instead of doing another lap on the already too warm face, we’d head over to a more west facing line. This turned out to a good choice and led to some of the best snow of the trip. After a lap there, we headed down the drainage to the point where we’d cross the rive and have to transition to skins to head back up to the hut.
After making it back to the hut, I took advantage of another perk of the Opus Hut - a full bar. I ordered an Aperol Spritz for $9, which felt very reasonably priced considering the location. After dinner, we headed to bed unsure of what we’d ski the next day.
The final morning we woke up and decided we were pretty beat from the previous days and didn’t feel like waiting for a face to soften enough for it to be an enjoyable ski so most of us decided to head back to our cars at the trailhead. It was a quick return to the car.
Overall, I had a great time at this hut, and it’s one of my favorite huts in Colorado. I believe we timed the snow quality and snowpack stability really well. A lot of the terrain around the hut is avalanche terrain so I’d recommend booking this hut for a spring skiing trip, when stability is hopefully a little better!
Total stats: 3.5 miles, 1600 ft of elevation gain from the parking lot to the hut
