Guinn Hut or the Arestua Hut

Along with the Jenny Creek Trail, the Guinn Mountain Hut are accessible via the Eldora Ski Area, and are excellent trainers for a Tenth Mountain Hut trip. The Arestua Hut is maintained by the Colorado Mountain Club. You cannot make reservations for overnight use, so the hut is available on a first come - first served basis. It is a very small cabin, so it can get extremely crowded if two groups show up for the same night. To help mitigate this, you can visit either the reservation calendar to see if people will be using it on a particular night. To make a reservation you can send an email to the hutmeister.

Variations on this hike:

Jenny Creek Trail Guinn Mountain Loop

Guinn Mountain Hut to Corona Bowl Loop




This is a google earth view of the hike looking west towards the continental divide:






Guinn Hut is a great trainer for the tenth mountain huts, especially if you live around the front range. The real name of the hut is the Arestua Hut, which is managed by the Colorado Mountain Club. Everyone else calls it Guinn Hut, because it is located on Guinn Mountain. Starting out with the elevation model, you notice a small downhill section midway through


the hike, this will require skins on the way back up, which is a minor bummer.

Looking at it with some satellite imagery, you can see that you skirt up the side of Eldora Ski Resort before turning up the mountain. One nice part about this hike is that it is relatively easy to enter the resort and ski to your car at this point.
Of course, click here if you would like to view this trail on Google Earth.

Below you can find the necessary files to go on this hike.

GPX file to help download route into your GPS Unit
Topo Map of Nederland
Topo Map of East Portal

Comments

Tom Bender said…
This page is awesome! Thanks Momo!
fineptg1 said…
I am planning a x country trip from Eldora up past Arestua and on to Winter Park. Can someone tell me where I can leave my car in the Eldora area. Is there overnight parking at the trailhead?
Thanks,

Brian
outdoorbum said…
Brian -

There are two options:

1> Take the bus from Boulder/Nederland

2> There is a parking lot for the nordic center/guinn mountain hut located near the "eldora" sign which marks the main entrance to the ski resort.

The trail for the map below starts at this parking lot. if you zoom in on satellite mode:

http://maps.coloradohikers.com/?lat=39.93619757794847&lng=-105.58539390563965&zoom=13&trail=219

you will see the parking lot I am talking about.

Gregg
Unknown said…
The reservation calendar has been moved to: http://calendar.yahoo.com/arestuahut

and the hutmiester email is now:

arestuahut@yahoo.com
Chris said…
09/04/12
Hi. Just wanted to let you all know I visited the hut today. Everything looked OK. The door was not latched and I left it that way.

I found a dog up there and left a note on the door saying I had taken the dog with me. I also put the orange area closed sign in front of the door. (I was thinking someone was nearby with the dog. Wanted to let them know the dog was safe and I thought the sign would catch their eye.)

Turns out, it was a dog that had been frightened during a hike and ran off. Thankfully their is a happy ending. I was able to track down the owners through the Gilpin county sheriff. Whoever is there next can discard the note.

Nice hut! I didn't even know it was up their. Maybe I'll see some of you their this winter. Keep up the good work!

Chris
Chris said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
HutSkier said…
Dogs are not allowed on The Jenny Creek Trail or the Guinn Mountain Trail from Dec 1--April 30 by USFS ARNF orders, please respect other hut users and leave your dogs at home.
Dogs compromise the water supply issues at the Arestua Hut.
Unknown said…
The CMC maintains a page for the Ă…restua hut.
Many more details are described there. Please see:
http://www.cmcboulder.org/cabin-arestua.html

DM
Unknown said…
The CMC maintains a website that describes Ă…restua hut.
Many more details can be found there. Please see:
http://www.cmcboulder.org/cabin-arestua.html