UNTIL THEN, THERE'S WORK TO DO. On a sunny day in November, the mason is on his way over to size up the rock fireplace. Librado "Balo" Martinez—the 33-year-old Oaxacan contracting genius who, like log-house chinker Arnie Fong, came with the house and lives upstairs—is inside hanging Sheetrock, and Charlotte is haggling over a commode. Looking Jackson glam in flared designer jeans and a puffy vest with a faux fur collar, she paces in the muddy snow, sparring on her cell phone with a supplier who delivered a toilet in the same dog-shit-brown color of the paneling they just ripped out, instead of the champagne taupe she'd clearly ordered. ("Fighting with these guys is never fun," she says, hand over the phone, "but if I can save a thousand dollars per call ...")

If that weren't enough, she's trying to break her one-year-old Lab mix, Onyx, from growling at the paper boy—"Sorry!" she calls after the kid—and it's time to go chop wood. One of the first fronts of the season is rolling in, and there may be only a few days left to lay in firewood before snow buries the forest roads.

Charlotte heads inside and plops onto the couch. "Oh, my God—is this mouse shit?"

Sprawled on the great room's thirdhand furniture are several of her housemates, pulling on wool socks for the firewood run. Charlotte's boyfriend, Jeff Annetts, picks a pellet from the cushion. A 29-year-old big-mountain skier, sportswear model, waiter, and "manny," Jeff is one of those ski bums whose haircut appears to cost more than his car. Like many of their friends, he's talented enough to be sponsored (by Fischer skis and, starting this winter, Columbia) but not big enough to make a living skiing. He's bunking in a room off the kitchen while he works on his own renovation, a house near the base of Snow King, Jackson's in-town ski area.

The talk this morning has been real estate. Charlotte has become something of a business role model for the boys, having dropped in first and—so far—stuck the landing. Now housemate Travis Owen, 25, a University of Vermont grad hoping to become a filmmaker, has convinced his mom to lend him the money for a down payment. He's already been to one open house today, a disappointment that he paints with phrases like "orange," "shag carpeting," and "guy sleeping on the couch." "I felt like I was walking into a drug deal," he says.

Jeff goes through the specimen, gives it a sniff. "I think it's just seeds." Apparently a pack rat has moved in under the sofa.

"They're sharp on the end," Charlotte says.

Travis takes a look. He's the house clown, infamous back in Vermont for losing his job as Rally Cat, the UVM mascot, after the local Burlington news affiliate caught the huggable catamount getting crocked in a downtown bar. Now he lays out some SKI House common sense: "What would you expect from something that came out an asshole that small? Yours was that little, you could put an edge on a turd, too."

This time of year, before the lifts open and the snowpack settles, things are fairly quiet at the SKI House, less MTV than HGTV. Residents work as many restaurant hours as possible, hang out at the Village Café bar at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, and sleep. Where are the 24-hour party people? Other than a cereal bowl in the sink and some boots by the door, life seems tame, if a little grungy. It looks like nothing's been dusted since the church campers left. "The guys try," Charlotte says, "but even when they think they're being clean, they're slobs."

Today the wood run qualifies as what they call "getting stuff done." We head out in two pickup trucks, making for a burn clearing two miles up Mosquito Creek Road. Charlotte and I thread her white Dodge Dakota with the glitchy transmission up the muddy, rutted road, past a shack that appears to have been built from baby-blue particleboard. "I love that place," she says, jouncing on the seat with excitement. "I so wish I could buy it—it's so run down!"

Travis and Jeff are up ahead in Matt Annetts's Toyota. Matt, Jeff's younger brother by two years, is a pro snowboarder ("He could be the next Jeremy Jones," Charlotte says) who lives in the basement with his girlfriend, bartender Marissa Krecker, 25. Like his brother, he's sponsored by a medicinal-tasting energy drink called Go Fast, which he breaks out while Jeff tries to fire up the chainsaw he borrowed from Balo.

"Good, huh?" Matt grins, awaiting my approval. "Yeah? Nice. The Austrian honey."

I ask Travis who his sponsors are. "I just have one," he says. "Jeff Annetts."

There is laughter and hooting over the blue smoke and cough of the saw. The boys fell a large dead lodgepole pine that snaps and shakes the ground as it hits. There's a touchdown-style victory dance, and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon replaces the Go Fast. As the boys celebrate, Charlotte is quietly getting stuff done. She shoulders a log that probably weighs 30 pounds less than she does and hikes it to the truck. She does this all afternoon.

"You evaluate your risks before you move into action," Charlotte told me once, and it's something she repeats as a business mantra on the snow and off. "And then just focus on getting it done."