ORP now taking yurt reservations
In addition to its main Logan campus, USU operates at a number of extension facilities all throughout the state. Most of these facilities are in buildings not much different than those found on the university’s campus.
One very different extension of USU’s Outdoor Recreation Program, however, lies in the mountains to Logan’s east. Nestled deep within the picturesque Blind Hollow of the Bear River Range, miles away from the nearest roads and snowmobile tracks, stands the Blind Hollow yurt.
Used as a base camp for backcountry ski trips and utilized for training courses on things like avalanche safety and backcountry survival, the yurt is an important asset to the ORP today.
The yurt, a round winter structure which was first conceptualized by ancient Mongolian nomads, was constructed for use by USU students on backcountry ski trips in the fall of 1995, but its history goes farther back.
Kevin Kobe, who was responsible for spearheading the original yurt project, first visited Utah from his home in the Midwest in the early ’80s as a senior in high school, driven by rumors of the state’s white, powdery winters.
“You read stories in Powder Magazine and that, and it really put this mental image in your mind,” Kobe said.
Captivated by the state’s quality skiing, Kobe returned to Utah soon after graduating high school to live the life of a “ski bum,” working odd jobs at Salt Lake City’s ski resorts and cutting his own tracks in the snow any chance he could get.
“Around this time I was also learning to tele ski, and that really freed not only my heel but my mind and the possibilities of backcountry skiing,” Kobe said.
Telemark skiing, a skiing style developed in Norway during the 19th century, enables skiers to travel not only downhill but also along flat and uphill terrain. By freeing the heel of the user’s ski boot from a binding, leaving it only connected by a pivot-point at the toe, the skier is able, with the use of fibrous skins placed on the skis’ bottoms to stop backward sliding, to ascend steep hills for later riding.
Kobe continued utilizing this technique to take advantage of Cache Valley’s mountains when he enrolled as a student at USU in the fall of 1993.
Throughout his time earning both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from USU, Kobe became increasingly involved at the university, teaching ski classes and guiding student ski trips.
As he neared completion of his graduate work at USU, Kobe was hired as a trip coordinator for the ORP – then known as the Outdoor Recreation Center – and, among other trips, began executing frequent student ski trips to various yurts throughout Idaho.
It was not long before Kobe determined USU needed a yurt of its own. He began engaging with the local forest service and conducting intensive research in locations all over the Bear River Range to find the best possible location for the yurt – where it would be relatively isolated in the backcountry, have access to good skiing and would not intrude on slopes already popular amongst locals.
When, in 1994, Kobe was given clearance by the National Forest Service to begin construction in upper Blind Hollow, “all systems were go,” he said.
Enlisting the help of student and “master carpenter” Norm Goltra, Kobe soon had hand drawn plans for an entirely one-of-a-kind yurt.
But the logistical hurdle remained: How would they ever transport all of the yurt’s components the four-and-a-half miles to its intended location?
Through a number of activities held on USU’s campus assembling parts of the soon-to-be yurt, Kobe recruited “an army of students” to volunteer during consecutive weekends in the fall of 1995 to haul in the large, heavy components of the yurt for construction before the arrival of the season’s snow.
“A lot of times I’ve been just so amazed at how whenever there’s something going on around here, students just appear with what we need,” Kobe said. “Right then and there we had this instant way to recruit students to come and help us haul all this the very next Saturday.”
Kobe said he even acquired the help of two llamas to assist in transporting the bulky loads on one of the heavier days of hauling.
Entirely designed and manufactured by USU students – everything from the wooden lattice for the walls to the hand-sewn canvas cover – the yurt was constructed and immediately put to use the winter of 1995-96.
According to Kobe, who later became the director of the ORP and is now the director of USU’s Campus Recreation, the yurt program was an immediate success and was booked full with reservations in its first year.
To facilitate the high volume of yurt visitors over the ensuing years, the original yurt has seen multiple renovations and reconstructions – fixing and replacing damaged or aging components – and recently was entirely replaced with a durable Pacific Yurt, which was flown in by helicopter.
For the smooth operation of the yurt program, today there exist approximately 12 yurt hosts, students who guide each visiting group to the yurt and assist in digging out the door and windows from any new snow, said Dominick Barratt, the ORP student shop manager.
“It definitely takes a level of dedication to be a yurt host,” Barratt said.
Barratt said the work of the yurt hosts enables students to safely ski in to the yurt where they may benefit from the pristine mountain setting.
“It is some of the better backcountry skiing in the area,” he said.
The yurt also provides students a place to retreat to when the notoriously toxic inversion settles into Cache Valley for the winter.
“When it’s full on inversion up here, you go up there and it’s just sick how nice it is with perfect blue skies,” Kobe said.
Reservation for the Blind Hollow yurt opened for students on Oct. 14 and will open for the public on Nov. 4. Barratt said there are limited dates the public may access the yurt, giving priority to students.
For more information on the Blind Hollow yurt or to make a reservation, visit www.usu.edu/camprec/htm/orp/yurt.
