New life for old chalet

Granite Park gets a makeover

Battered by wind and rain, buried by snow, Granite Park Chalet seems like an invincible stone-and-mortar citadel high in the wilds of Glacier National Park.

But it is not invincible.

Maintaining an alpine chalet is a perpetual challenge, requiring over-the-top efforts by the National Park Service and Belton Chalets Inc., the contractor that operates the backcountry hostel.

Last week, a major project was completed at the chalet by volunteers, with the help of serendipitous timing and weather. After a rigorous park management review, two new commercial stoves were flown to the chalet by helicopter and two 53-year-old stoves were flown out.

"We're doing a 25-minute flight to allow the chalet to function for another 25 years," said Jim Stack, a Whitefish financial adviser who led the volunteer effort with his wife, Lisa. "That's the trade-off."

New stoves wouldn't be a big deal for other lodges around the park, but they are for a chalet that is tucked under the Continental Divide at 7,000 feet, more than seven miles by trail from Logan Pass.

"We have tremendous challenges here," said Kathie Larson Phillips, who manages the chalet for Belton Chalets Inc. "Excellence takes hard work, and to achieve that in the high country you have to be methodical, you have to be careful, things have to be thought out."

Getting permission for the stoves to be delivered by helicopter was an uphill task for Stack and Phillips, who had to demonstrate that the stoves were needed for "necessary maintenance" and a helicopter was the best possible means of delivery.

"We had to go through an incredible number of hoops to prove that this was the best alternative," Stack said.

Stoves have been an essential component at Granite Park since 1955, when the chalet was operated as a full-service backcountry lodge with linens and cooked meals for guests. The chalet was closed in 1992 and reopened in 1996 as a hikers hut, with the stoves available for guests to cook their own meals.

After 53 years of use, the old South Bend stoves rusted and deteriorated, despite considerable effort to replace parts and maintain them. The new stoves also are manufactured by South Bend, with the same dimensions and features but with better materials.

The Stacks led a fundraising effort to purchase the stoves for about half their retail price of $8,000.

Allowing visitors to use camp stoves was considered, Stack said, but those types of stoves present a carbon monoxide risk, especially when the chalet is fully occupied with 36 guests and several staff, all doing their own cooking.

Delivering the stoves with livestock, as the old stoves were, also was considered. But doing so would require the bulky stoves to be carried in a "sling load" between two large pack animals, a practice that used to be common, but not anymore.

"The trick is you have to have pack animals that have doing that all their lives," Stack said, adding that outfitters who were consulted advised that sling loading would be extremely dangerous.

Glacier's new superintendent, Chas Cartwright, recently hiked to the chalet to get a firsthand look at the situation.

"Chas wanted the grand tour, and I said, 'Let's go,'" Phillips said. "He didn't just give it a cursory look, either. He checked out everything up here."

The project was approved just a couple of weeks prior to the airlift, allowing just enough time for the two stoves to be delivered and retrofitted to operate at 7,000 feet.

On Tuesday morning, the weather was calm and cool at the chalet, perfect for the airlift operation, which involved hauling out the old stoves and bringing in the new. In addition to those two flights, the park carried out its routine fall removal of sewage barrels from the chalet's outhouse.

A group of about a dozen volunteers anxiously watched from the chalet balcony as the Minuteman helicopter delivered the stoves. A park service ground crew unhooked them from a tether cable as the helicopter hovered above.

"Flawless!" shouted an ecstatic Phillips, who considers the new equipment crucial for the future of the chalet.

"We are truly preparing for the next century," she said.

Granite Park Chalet was built by the Great Northern Railway in 1914 out of large stones and timbers. It was the focus of a National Park Service restoration project during the period it was closed, with most of the work involving the replacement of the roof and rotting timbers.

But every year is a maintenance year at Granite Park. And since Belton Chalets took over the concessions contract in 2004, Phillips has been leading an aggressive volunteer maintenance effort.

She figured out right away that she couldn't expect a handful of her employees to handle all of the maintenance duties, "so I decided to invite some friends."

This spring, she had an opening crew of 40 people at the chalet. The entire Granite Park area was buried in snow, so people had to walk in, carrying tools and supplies on their backs rather than relying on packing stock.

The back side of the chalet was under more than nine feet of snow, requiring the volunteers to clear a stairway and dig a tunnel into the chalet's storeroom.

"That's what we did. Nine of us shoveled snow for three days," she said. "We didn't get a pack train in here until July 15."

Once the snow was cleared, the crew cleaned the chalet from top to bottom, with considerable effort in getting the old stoves ready for one more season. The crew also pursued a spring project - making varnished dining tables out of old bed boards.

"The crew I have are all gifted, they are plumbers, carpenters, painters, craftsmen," Phillips said. "They can do all things."

When the decision was made to pursue installation of new stoves in the fall, Phillips decided it also was the best opportunity to replace a rotting linoleum floor in the kitchen.

She decided on a flooring made out of wood fiber called Marmoleum. Getting the flooring in seven-foot-long, 125-pound tubes aboard packing stock presented more challenges.

"You just can't walk in here and put in a kitchen floor," Phillips said with a laugh.

Several pack trains were needed to get all the supplies and tools in for the flooring, plumbing and stoves. The flooring was installed by a volunteer crew and the plumbing by Bill Yarus of Airworks in Kalispell. All of them were lured by the prospects of doing an unusual job in spectacular setting.

"You can imagine what it takes to get a plumber in here," said Stack, who along with his wife have been happy, regular spring volunteers at the chalet.

"I could not have done this project without Jim and Lisa Stack," Phillips said.

By the end of the week, the kitchen overhaul was complete. The chalet's windows were boarded up and balcony railings removed to prepare for another long winter.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com