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Hut-to-hut travel is quickly becoming a favorite among the peculiar species known as mountain bikers. Why? Imagine combining all the virtues of a multiday mountain biking trip with the luxury of spending each night in a rustic alpine paradise stocked with assorted amenities (mini-donuts and breakfast burritos, to name a few, but also water, cots, and sleeping bags).

Hut-to-hut pedaling lets you ride longer and stronger, without wasting your knees on the weight of six days' worth of food and drink.

Last August, we sent writer/photographer Steve Casimiro with writer Gretchen Reynolds and a clan of mountain biking virtuosos (i.e., their friends) to ride 200-plus miles (300-plus kilometers) from Telluride, Colorado, to Moab, Utah, by way of the San Juan Hut System (see "200 Miles to Moab" in the October 2002 issue of Adventure).

On a route intended to take seven days to complete, this group of riders, fortified by a mix of great trail and good company, coasted into Moab one day early—a 75-mile [121-kilometer] feat of both the mind and body.

—Mary Anne Potts

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