Transcription of David Herring for the show Light #6
Dr. Lisa: Now we have our Maine Magazine minutes hosted by Genevieve Morgan of Maine Magazine.
Genevieve: Thanks Lisa. I’m really excited today because we are welcoming in to the studio David Herring from Maine Huts and Trails. He is the executive director, the first executive director of Maine Huts and Trails and has served in that capacity since 2005. Over the last 5 years, Maine Huts and Trails has built and opened 3 back country lodges and more than 50 miles of non-motorized trails for free year round use by the public here in our beloved state.
Nearly 10,000 people have visited the huts and trails since the first hut Poplar Stream Falls opened in 2008 including our very own Sandy Lang who skied hut to hut last winter and wrote about it in our upcoming issue which will be coming out at the end of this month. Welcome David, it’s so nice to have you here.
David: Thank you, it’s great to be here.
Genevieve: I wanted to start off by asking you, what was the inspiration for building huts in Maine?
David: Well it’s kind of a long story. To boil it down, I think the concept was to create anature-based tourism destination in western Maine so we could bring economic development to the region, create jobs, but also draw upon the strengths of the region being it’s natural resources. Our founder Larry Warren who has been involved in lots of activities, economic development and otherwise in western Maine and in particular in the Sugarloaf area started talking this idea around of a hut to hut system decades ago honestly. Started to generate excitement amongst friends and business people in the area.
Over the last 5 or so years it’s really taken off with the hiring of staff and building of huts and trails and attracting people and all that.
Genevieve: You have 3 am I correct?
David: Correct. Our vision is for up to 10 or 12 and 180 miles of trails with huts along the way, but we currently have 3.
Genevieve: How far apart are they?
David: They are about a days hike or ski apart, which typically means about 10-12 miles between them. It’s important to note that they’re really accessible in that each hut essentially has it’s own trail head, which is typically 2-2 1/2 miles from that hut. You can do just into the hut from the trail head in a nice short trip, or you can do hut to hut if you want longer trips.
Genevieve: This is really exciting, don’t you think Lisa because we are talking about light in our show today. One of the ways that people can get exercise in winter is to go out and actually enjoy the outdoors, which you make much more accessible. Sandy’s article was all about cross country skiing hut to hut, but I know there are many other sports you can do and many other ways you can get to the huts.
David: Yeah the unique thing about our system here in Maine is that it’s multi-season and multi-sport. You can use it in all seasons and use it using many different means of access to get there. In the winter primarily people are cross country skiing and snow shoeing, but also hiking on groomed and ungroomed trails. In the summer and fall people are hiking, they’re mountain biking, they’re paddling, those are the primary uses that people are using the system.
February and March, they are our busiest months. When you talk about getting out and being active in the winter, that’s when most people are using the system.
Genevieve: We actually have more sunny days in the winter than we do in the summer which is something that a lot of people in Maine don’t know. Lisa is shivering here beside me thinking “Oh that sounds so cold.”
Dr. Lisa: As I told you, I used to race in high school, I was on the high school ski team. I run every morning in the winter, yet I still think “Oh my gosh, snow shoeing from hut to hut, that seems really cold.” But you told me that’s not really true, it’s really more comfortable than that. Is that so?
David: Yeah it’s all about preparing for the conditions. If you wear the proper clothing and layers and you’re being active and traveling hut to hut, whether you’re snow shoeing or skiing, you’re going to stay warm. The beauty of the huts is that at the end of the long day you can take off your sweaty clothes and put them in a drying room and put on something cozy and sit in front of the fire and have a glass wine or tea or beer and just relax and enjoy a heated lodge.
Dr. Lisa: Oh it’s getting better by the minute as you’re describing this. OK.
David: It’s important to know too, they’re really more like lodges than huts. People are sometimes confused by the word hut. It can mean a variety of different things to a variety of different people depending on your perspective and experience. They’re really comfortable lodges.
Genevieve: And they’re staffed.
David: They are. We have 2 primary seasons, our summer season which runs from June through the end of October and the we have our winter season which runs from mid December through the end of March. Those 2 seasons are our full service seasons. We have a staff of 4 at each of the huts who cook meals and welcome guests. They’re essentially running their own little inns in the woods in western Maine.
Genevieve: Tell me what it’s like to sleep in the hut. Are you in bunk beds with a bunch of strangers, what’s it like?
David: Not quite that exciting.
Dr. Lisa: It actually just got worse again there. But you’re going to make it better. Sell me on this one David.
David: When we designed the system and designed the huts, we looked at a variety of different systems around the world. In Europe if you go to huts, in the Alps or whatever, a lot of times you’ll find large bunk rooms with lots of bunks and very social, kind of hostel experience. We Americans like our privacy a little bit more than others around the world. We’ve designed the huts to have several rooms at each hut.
You can have private accommodations if you want them, or you can do shared accommodations and meet people and be social, just kind of depends on what you’re looking for. The rooms themselves have bunks, some of them double, some of them single. We have mattresses and fleece blankets and pillows and they’re heated. People just need to bring a pillow case and either sheets or a light sleeping bag. The rooms are heated to 60 degrees.
It’s not like you need to bring a 30 degree down sleeping bag, but sometimes people in the winter they sleep cold and they want that, that’s fine too. It makes it feel more like a back country experience, which it is. It’s also comfortable and sheets would do fine.
Genevieve: How far in advance do you need to make reservations?
David: That’s actually an important question now Genevieve because a couple of years when we opened, people could call the day of, or 2 days before and there was always space but word has gotten out about Maine Huts and Trails and that’s certainly what we’ve been working on overtime. We actually have more than 500 reservations already for this coming winter and there are many Saturdays where people could not find a space that they maybe would be looking for.
It’s imperative now that people start to plan their hut trips in advance. The 2-4 week thing is really like 2-4 months if you’re looking for that prime space, Saturdays and holidays and vacation periods. Mid-week you’re likely still to be able to find a space that you’re looking for. It’s important to plan ahead.
Genevieve: Does that apply to day trippers coming up from Sugarloaf for lunch?
David: It does not, no. You can come up on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we have lunch from 11-2 and you don’t need reservations. If you wanted to come up during the week, we don’t offer daily lunch service Monday-Thursday unless we know you’re coming. It’s important that we knew somebody was coming. Even if you showed up, we’d still be able to fix you some soup or some warm brownies or something.
Genevieve: In addition to Sandy’s article coming out in the upcoming issue of Maine Magazine, what other exciting things are happening at Maine Huts and Trails?
David: We’re waiting with baited breath to find out when we’re going to be covered in the New York Times travel section because we had a writer and a photographer come out last winter, I think around the same time that Sandy did. As excited as we are about this feature in Maine Magazine, we’re also quite excited to see ourselves covered in the New York Times travel section.
Genevieve: That is exciting, but you’re not going to forget about us homies are you?
David: No way, not a chance.
Genevieve: Sandy Lang who is a writer at Maine Magazine makes it sound like the most fun thing one can possibly do on cross country skis. I’m wondering for those of us who are less experience how accessible is it to get to the huts? Can you bring your kids?
David: Definitely it’s very accessible. That’s kind of a big part of why we designed the system the way we did. We wanted to try and create outdoor experiences for everybody but especially for the general recreationists. For people who maybe haven’t done big back country ski trips in Colorado or wherever, it’s accessible. You can rent skis at a local shop or the Sugarloaf outdoor center and head to the trail head and in a couple of miles you’d be at a hut. Especially at Flagstaff lake hut, it’s a little bit less than 2 miles from the trail head. There’s very little elevation gain. There’s really nice views.
I have a young child, and lots of my friends have young children. We found that’s a great place to bring young kids and it’s a great introductory to the hut system and to being outside in the winter because even if you run into some challenges with the kids and meltdown on the way into the hut, it’s only 2 miles. You’re going to be there before long and it’s all going to be good once you settle into the hut and get some hot chocolate rolling and sit in front of the fire and relax. It’s important that kids have those kinds of experiences early on in their lives that are positive with the outdoors to create the connection that will want them coming back and get them coming back outdoors.
Genevieve: Which we actually talked about in a somewhat different way with Steven Anderson. He was talking about the importance of play and exercise and letting children feel this lightness in their body. He was connecting it specifically to sports but you’re talking about this with regard to the outdoors as well.
David: Definitely. One of the really cool things that you’ll see at the huts, I had this experience this summer with a niece and a nephew of mine. We went up there and their parents stayed at home with some other family members and I took them up there. Over the course of a couple hours, the adults were hanging out in the dock or inside reading or whatever, and the kids were having unstructured play time.
It was incredible to watch them running around outside and just taking part in unstructured playtime outside and having a great time making up games. I just think there’s less and less of that going on these days and we think it’s crazy important for kids to have those experiences. I think the system really creates those opportunities for people because it’s successful, because there’s people out there, and because we have the huts there.
Genevieve: Important for kids and adults.
Lisa: David, I’m a little scared, are there wild animals out there?
David: Well, yes but you don’t need to be scared. More often than not people may not realize this but the wild animals are much more afraid of us than we are of them. That being said, you will have an opportunity potentially to see moose. People often times see moose along the shore of the lake or in foggy areas. There are black bears as there are all over Maine. There’s also beavers and eagles and loons, and all sorts of things. Lots of birding.
Genevieve: Not many people know that Maine Huts and Trails is actually a nonprofit organization and that you do rely on donations and volunteers as well as your paid staff and reservations. How can people, if they want to get involved or if they want to do something for Maine Huts and Trails?
David: You can start by going online, just like any nonprofit business these days we’ve got a good website I think. There’s lots of opportunities for people to get involved. There’s volunteer days almost monthly, we’ll have something going on. In fact this month we’ve got 2 volunteer days coming up on the weekends. They’re wood stacking days. The old New England proverb is that wood warms us 3 times, when we stack it, when we split it, and when we heat it or use it. People will have the opportunity to take part in those first 2 ways this couple weekends coming up.
There’s volunteer days, there’s volunteer days in the summer to work on the trails or in the huts. There’s membership, you can become a member. There’s lots of great benefits of becoming a member. You get free use of canoes and kayaks at Flagstaff during the summer, you get discounts on lodging, invites to our free barbecue in October, lots of great ways to be part of an active outdoor community who cares about what we’re doing.
Of course you can consider Maine Huts and Trails in your philanthropic giving if that’s something you’re inclined to do and have the means to do, you can certainly do that. We’ve got a trails appeal going on right now through the end of the year. We’re almost half the way to our goal. You can go online and take a look at that and see what you can help us create.
Genevieve: Every dollar builds another hut right?
David: Yeah kind of. Every dollar times a certain number.
Genevieve: David what’s the easiest way to make a reservation?
David: You can do it 2 ways. You can do it online at Mainehuts.org. All the information is on there. If you’d rather speak to somebody about Maine Huts you can certainly call our reservation line. We’ve got a staff person there ready to answer your questions and help customize your trip and talk you through where to go and where to start and how to prepare and all that kind of stuff. We want to make it really easy so online or over the phone.
Genevieve: It sounds like a great way to add a little lightness to those dark winter months.
David: We think so.
Genevieve: I’m going to get Lisa out there on snow shoes just you wait.
Dr. Lisa: Listen I’ve been out on snow shoes. I’ve lived in Maine most of my life, I know what this is all about. I’ll go I promise. Especially since you were talking about brownies. Thank you so much for coming in David.
David: Thank you.