The hut rules nobody posts on the wall

The hut sleeps eight. At 8:50 p.m., with seven people already zipped into their bags, the door bangs open and a headlamp the size of a landing light sweeps the room. A man whispers "Don't mind me!" at the volume of a lawn mower, then spends twenty minutes finding his socks by crinkling every bag he owns. I know him well. I was him, my first trip, and I'd like to apologize to a room in Colorado.

The rules

1. Get in before dark. Daylight is free and arriving in it makes you look like a professional. It also means you find the hut, the woodpile and the privy while you can still see them, and nobody's sleep pays for your timing. If you're running late, a headlamp is one of the ten essentials for exactly this reason.

1. Boots off at the door. The floor is the only dry thing for miles, and it shouldn't be a creek by supper. Snow and mud carried inside melt into bunks, packs and other people's dinners.

1. Red light after dark. A white beam at 5 a.m. is a small sunrise nobody ordered. Switch your headlamp to red and the room keeps its sleep and its night vision.

1. Take one bunk's worth of space. Your pack is not a second guest. Spread out and the person who walks in at dusk has nowhere to lie down, so keep your gear against the wall and your elbows to yourself.

1. Never run a stove in a closed space. No joke attached. Carbon monoxide has no smell and it kills sleeping people. Cook only where the hut says to cook, with ventilation, and never use a camp stove to heat a room.

1. Burn less wood than you leave. The best thing in any hut is a cold stove with dry kindling already split beside it, which is the outdoor version of walking in to find a casserole. Check the hut's rules first, because some have no wood supply at all. Where there is one, restock it. The next group may arrive soaked and shaking, and ten minutes to a fire matters.

1. Dry your gear near the stove, not on it. I once owned a boot with a permanent opinion about heat. Melted soles and scorched socks are the mild outcome. Keep everything clear of the stove and never leave drying gear unattended.

1. Hang the food. Hut mice have read every review of every granola bar. Use the hooks, a bag on a line or a sealed container, because the mouse always finds the one thing you wanted for breakfast.

1. Quiet by nine, and pack the night before. Hikers' midnight is real, and a nylon stuff sack at dawn sounds like a cheerleading squad. Lay out tomorrow's gear in the dark tonight and the early risers won't wake the whole room.

1. Pack earplugs, and be gracious. My wife slipped a pair of foam plugs into my bag before my first hut trip. I thought they were for other people. They were for the other people, and for me, once I learned who snores. She was right. She usually is.

1. Sign the log, and write something useful. "Trail's icy above treeline, microspikes helped" beats poetry every time. It tells the next group what they're walking into, and a record of who passed through can help searchers if somebody goes missing.

1. Never turn anyone away in a storm. Also no joke. A hut is a shelter first and a reservation second, so if somebody staggers in out of weather, you make room, even if that means the floor. If you're the one on the floor, a good pad matters, and the ground steals your heat before the air does. And if you're the one in the storm, read the weather early so you're not the one knocking.

1. Sweep up, and leave something behind that isn't trash. Carry out every scrap you carried in, wash your own pot, sweep the floor. Then leave a fresh roll in the privy, since a fresh roll earns more gratitude than any summit photo ever has.

The rule under all of them

The hut belongs to whoever needs it next. Every rule above is that sentence in a different jacket. Leave it warmer, drier and tidier than you found it, and keep a spot open for the stranger on the trail behind you.

Somebody's coming in out of the dark. Be the reason it's warm.