Personally I like the idea of spearhead huts, but I do see some issues.
I currently don't think the full spearhead traverse is really seeing that much traffic… maybe 50 groups a year?? So considering the size of the terrain back there, saying that there is uncontrolled human waste is off the mark. Once these huts are put in, I fully expect traffic to increase exponentially. I fully expect this to be a pretty big deal in the media, with high visibility in most ski/snowboard magazines, outdoor magazines and newspapers like the NY times. It's going to be something for people all over the place to tick off their list.
In order to be prepared for this I think these huts need to be big, like twice the size of keith's hut big, with some way of booking. I'd be interested in hearing how the booking works for the busy huts on the haute route in the alps. I don't think we are there yet with regards to traffic, but with the increasing number of people touring, I think 10-20 years from now, that it's a possibility.
Booking seems challenging however. 98% of the terrain back there is full alpine, not a lot of fun during a storm, let alone flat light. How could you possibly book something without knowledge of what the weather is going to be like when you want to go? It's not like Whistler is known for it's great weather. Maybe putting a couple of these huts down at treeline would be better. You could find huts being booked with people hoping the weather clears, and then when it doesn't the huts sit empty.
I definelty would love to spend a few days out the back during a high pressure in March/April. And it would be awesome not to lug shelter.
Personally, I'd like to see more of the regulated, maintained, user-fee huts in the Sea to Sky area. I'm not sure if I find the "secret trail" or the "secret hut" elitists more annoying. I got chewed out for mentioning the Steep Creek hut on Telemark Tips last year (oops I did it again) nevermind that BikeCo had a whole blog post about it.
As far as the secret hut society goes, it's there for a good reason. The volunteer maintained, "illegal" huts are small, have no booking system, and can't handle a lot of use. Would you stand in the peak chair line-up on a busy weekend pow day and yell out to everyone the location of that hut? If you did that, you would probably tell less people than you would posting about it on telemark tips. Their are a hell of a lot more people reading that then there are actively posting on it, not to mention the ease of then finding out about it with google.
I have to say, I'm really surprised Bike co has that post up on their blog, especially considering the reception I've had from some people in that valley (since the hut was put in)
Couple examples, volunteer group goes in every fall and cuts firewood for the hut, snowmobilers find out about hut, proceed to spend every weekend in there high marking every ski slope within reach of the hut and burn all the wood during the day while going in to "warm up" for lunch. Wood is gone by March, and later groups get to freeze.
Or
Another hut uses a drum to catch all the human waste from the outhouse to stop it contaminating a nearby lake, every few years someone has the horrible job of moving this drum away from the lake and dumping it. With increasing traffic, this now needs to be done every summer…. a horrible thankless job.
I find a lot of the blogging going on on telemark tips, etc. is not far off bragging, and doesn't really give out a lot of useful information that you couldn't get from reading weather forecasts and checking weather stations. Or by posting less detailed info, i.e. 35degree slope, NNW facing, duffey, ski pen 30cms.
You might not think posting up info on their is a big deal, but i've experienced a couple times whereby we've toured to a rarely travelled zone to find it tracked out. A visit to telemark tips showed someone posted about it the week before.
Obviously with the increasing popularity of touring this was going to happen anyway, I just see no need in speeding up the process. Anyways, thanks to a change in lifestyle I'm not skiing on a sunday afternoon, which has increased my bitterness somewhat.