Worthy McCormick and Bond Camp want to bring what they call “a community feel” to mountain hospitality. That, essentially, explains their motivation for opening the Bivouac, or Bivvi, a new ski-town bed-and-breakfast–meets–European hostel on the southern end of Breckenridge.

During the past decade, the 28-year-old duo spent large chunks of their winters roaming the West together in pursuit of powder. They attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and often made the drive up to Summit County. For longer road trips, they bought an old school bus on eBay and transformed it into a mobile motel room and nightclub, procuring prime overnight parking spots in exchange for cases of beer.

Eventually McCormick and Camp grew weary of battling I-70, but they couldn’t afford to stay in the mountains every weekend. The bus notwithstanding, they always wondered why there weren’t more lodging options built for people like them: places where substance superseded swank, where powder hounds socialized instead of channel-surfed.

Their solution: buy the old Allaire Timbers Inn just south of Boreas Pass Road and turn it into the lodge of their refined-ski-bum dreams. An 8,500-square-foot log cabin is no small project, but in November they completed a six-month remodel that yielded a new twist on the American mountain hostel. The Bivvi opened the week of Thanksgiving with bunk rooms and private suites, a sprawling common room, and capacity for thirty-six guests.

“We wanted to do something totally different from your normal bed-and-breakfast,” says McCormick, who originally hails from Vermont. Of the target clientele, he adds, “We’re trying to get a more like-minded individual.”

It’s worth noting that as he says this, he’s standing in the Bivvi’s common room under a chandelier whose healthy complement of antlers he and Camp, a Georgia native, have painted bright blue to establish “aura.” A fire crackles behind them. Twenty feet away sits a sunken granite bar, inviting guests to share stories over microbrew drafts until the next day’s powder is only a few hours away.

Down the hall, custom triple-stack bunks made of Norwegian pine evoke a bullet-train sleeper car more than a traditional hostel dorm—by design. Each bunk has privacy curtains, a power source, and a lantern. Cost for a bed (and a breakfast of bagel, fruit, and yogurt) is $45 a night. King suites, meanwhile, come with a flat-screen TV and cost $250 a night, slightly more than the queens. Every room, suite or bunk, has its own balcony and bathroom, so you don’t have to walk down the hall to brush your teeth.

Neither, for that matter, do you have to walk to the chairlift in the morning—even though it’s only ten minutes by foot. The town bus stops outside the Bivvi’s front door and whisks you to the gondola for free.