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Slow-moving lift lines and crowded slopes have sapped many a skier's spirit in recent years. But the adventurous have discovered a way to escape the winter masses and reacquaint themselves with the wilds of nature while getting a rigorous workout: gliding along an idyllic wilderness trail on a yurt-to-yurt ski trip.

The nomadic Mongols of central Asia have traditionally used these round, portable tents as they traverse the grasslands with their herds. In the United States, however, travel companies have scattered them throughout the mountains of the American West, so back-country sport enthusiasts can settle into them at night to relax, eat, and catch some shut-eye after an exhilirating, but exhausting day spent exploring remote slopes.

It's an outdoor adventure with a civilized touch, and two friends and I decide to give it a try. We settle on a seventeen-mile loop in southern Colorado's beautiful San Juan Mountains, where we've arranged through a company called Southwest Nordic Center to overnight in three sepaerate yurts. We can hardly wait to vanish into the snow.

Our four-day, three-night trip begins at 9,800 feet, when I park my truck at the roadside marker for Neff yurt. After dividing our food rations among the three of us, we shoulde our packs, step into our cross-country skis, and start to glide uphill on a winding trail that takes us through some tall pine trees, their branches sagging with white powder. The yurt is about three miles away at 10,400 feet, but we're already huffing and puffing by the end of the first mile, thanks to the altitude and the weight of our packs. Taking ten-minute breaks now and then helps us catch our breath and acclimatize. While stopped, we chow down on energy bars to refuel our bodies.

After more than two hours of skiing, we finally arrive at Neff, which we find peacefully nestled in the woods just below a dramatic, snow-covered ridge. The domed, circular, white-canvas tent blends in well with the huge drifts of snow around it, which are so high we can glide right onto the eight-foot-tall deck, where a reassuring stack of freshly split firewood sits. Just a few steps away is a simple outhouse. Pine- and spruce-covered mountains roll into the distance beyond, and a nearby ridge offers some tempting-looking skiing. We vow to explore that later.

Inside the yurt, we discover a cozy, rustic vision that we quickly sabotage with all our gear and the sweaty socks we hang up to dry. Our home for the night has two sets of bunk beds, with sheets and pillows, and a wooden table and benches. Wood poles extend from the walls like wheel spokes to hold up the pitched canvas ceiling, which has a pyramid-shaped skylight in the middle of it. Southwestern rugs thrown across the floorboards help keep our feet warm, and a baby-blue toilet seat hangs above the wood stove, so we can preheat it for nighttime forays to the sub-zero outhouse. Some sacrifices come with any back-country trek.

My friend Rufo gets busy cooking in the well-equipped kitchen, which has enough dishes and utensils to satisfy a gourmet. As he prepares a tasty wild-mushroom risotto, my other traveling partner, Paul, builds a fire in the wood stove. I venture out with a bucket to fetch some fresh snow to melt for drinking and cooking. (Most yurts don't have electricity or running water, but the yurts we rented had Coleman lanterns and plenty of snow.)

After dinner, as the sun begins to sink behind the mountains, we set off to ski the ridge behind the yurt, feeling delightfully unencumbered after an afternoon carrying our heavy packs. As we glide through the woods, I can barely hear a sound aside from the blood pounding in my ears. When darkness falls, the display of stars is astounding - and when the moon rises, it casts an eerie glow across the snow as we ski across it. We make several forays up the ridge, careening down it again and again into the deep pillows of snow at the bottom.

The next day, we ski about six more miles to Trujillo Meadows yurt, which is well-situated in a pretty valley at 10,400 feet. Both ins skiing through the trees around the yurt, then head back indoors to cook a pata dinner and kick back. Later, when Paul steps out on the deck, he's just in time to spot a huge fireball blazing through the sky - the perfect ending to our adventurous day in the snow.

Come sunrise, we pack up and head out yet again. By the time we reach Flat yurt, we're at 11,100 feet and not far from the Continental Divide. We have skied more than a dozen miles so far, but the going has gotten easier because we've eaten most of our food and our packs are now significantly lighter. Not one of us complains.

The yurt is hidden in some pine trees at the edge of a huge, snowy bowl. It looks much like our previous two retreats, so we're starting to feel like we're coming home to the same place every night - only in a different spectacular location.

After settling in, we glide through the trees to a large, snow-covered ridge that juts into the bright-blue sky above us. Leaving our skis at the bottom, we hike to the top and are rewarded with a gorgeous vista of the Rio Chama basin wilderness, a wild, wooded valley stretched out for miles below. Even though we're miles from anywhere, I realize we're still only at the edge of the real back country.

The next morning, it's time to return to civilization, and we ski the final four and one-half miles down to my truck. As we drive back home, several vehicles whiz past us with downhill skis strapped to their roofs, their passengers rushing to nearby ski areas. I don't envy those skiers; instead, I can't wait to get back out in the quiet woods for my next yurt trip, where only the sun and the moon will be keeping time on my hours of skiing.

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