Sperry Chalet dorm lost to fire may be rebuilt

by Ray Djuff, Prince Of Wales Hotel 1973-75, ’78

[posted here by kind permission of the author;

featured image of Sperry fire courtesy National Park Service]

As quickly as the Sprague forest fire destroyed the dormitory, or “hotel,” building at Sperry Chalet on August 31, 2017, there was talk of rebuilding the structure.

The morning after the fire, Doug Mitchell, newly appointed executive director of the Glacier National Park Conservancy, was talking with park superintendent Brian Mow about the next step.

The conservancy quickly established a $90,000 emergency fund and hired DCI+BCE Engineers to come up with stabilization plan for the damaged building. The conservancy will also buy supplies to do the stabilization work.

{Note: since this was written the building has been stabilized for the winter by the NPS with funding from the Glacier National Park Conservancy.  See Glacier NP Media Release Oct. 19, 2017}

DCI+BCE Engineers is a Seattle-based structural and civil engineering firm, with offices in Missoula, Kalispell, Bozeman and Billings, that was consulted on repairs to Sperry Chalet after it was damaged by an avalanche in 2011.

Glacier superintendent Jeff Mow told the Missoulian newspaper that it was too soon to know what the future holds for Sperry, but “this work represents the first step in assessing the extent of the damage to evaluate what future actions might be possible.”

For U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, a native Montanan and former U.S. representative for the state, there was no doubt about the future.

“Rebuilding Sperry is one of my top priorities,” Zinke said in a news release from Glacier. “Today’s announcement is the first step in that process.”

The sentiment was supported by both of Montana’s U.S. senators, Jon Tester and Steve Daines.

The fire that gutted Sperry Chalet was caused by a severe thunderstorm on August 10 that saw some 150 lightning strikes setting off several small blazes in Glacier, one in the Sprague Creek drainage on Edwards Mountain, east of Lake McDonald Lodge.

The forest fire grew rapidly, from 10 to 101acres within days of its discovery, cutting off access to Sperry Chalet along the trail from Lake McDonald, stranding chalet staff and 39 guests.

The last guests to arrive at the hotel was a group of five women, among them Khi Soldano, daughter of Blackfeet artist King Kuka (1946-2004).

In face of the growing fire threat and after consultations with the National Park Service, chalet manager Renee Noffke closed the building and led the staff and stranded guests to safety on Friday, August 11, via Gunsight Pass, a 13.5-mile trek to Sun Road.

For Soldano and her four hiking partners, who had struggled over that same trail just two days before due to being ill-prepared and ill-informed about the hike, the return trip was a daunting thought.

“I wasn’t sure if I could ever do that (hike) again,” Soldano told the Great Falls Tribune. “Then that thought was thrown in my face. I’d have to do it again.”

With the public evacuated from the Sperry region, a group of highly skilled firefighters was assigned to defend the chalet. The firefighters did fuel reduction around the five structures in the area, laid out an extensive line of hoses, put sprinklers on the chalet roof and set up a pump system. As well, the firefighters put protective wrap on exposed wood and around the bottom of buildings with decks.

It was decided that it would be too unwieldly to try to wrap the entire dormitory.

Logistically, it is difficult to wrap a building the size of the chalet, said Glacier fire information officer Diane Sine. Each roll of the fire-resistant material weighs about 100 pounds and the crew couldn’t get to the top of the two-storey building.

Sine said using a fire retardant gel also presents difficulties, as it has to be maintained and hauled in buckets to the site.

“They felt that the sprinklers were enough,” Glacier’s public information officer Diane Mann-Klager said.

Despite the best efforts of firefighters to contain the Sprague fire in the heavily wooded and steep sides of Edward Mountain, it continued to grow, from about 500 acres on August 18 to 4,600 acres on September 1.

With the fire spreading unchecked and causing dangerously poor air quality conditions in the valley, Lake McDonald Lodge announced August 29 it was closing early for the season. It was originally supposed to close September 27. The move was out of concern for employee safety–because they work and live onsite they have a longer duration exposure to the air conditions.

Four days later, Sun Road was closed from Apgar to Logan Pass and everyone around Lake McDonald was ordered to leave.

Firefighters moved in to protect Lake McDonald Lodge and neighbouring buildings. Pumps were put in Snyder Creek and Lake McDonald, hoses laid out and an extensive “Rain for Rent” sprinkler system was used to increase the humidity around the lodge.

By now, the fire was now on Sperry Chalet’s doorstep.

“The fire team . . . worked tirelessly to contain this fire and protect structures and infrastructure,” said superintendent Mow.

While battling an “ember shower” from the approaching fire, the firefighters noticed puffs of smoke under an eave on the Sperry Chalet dorm. It was approximately 6:10 p.m. on Thursday, August 31.

The firefighters sprayed the area with water because they thought there was an ember on the roof. Almost instantaneously, a window in the dorm broke out and flames were licking at the eaves. From a photo taken of the event, it would appear that embers had gotten inside the building and had set the interior alight.

It was a “valiant stand” by the firefighters, supported by three helicopters with water buckets, to save the structure, but they were unsuccessful.

The 103-year-old Sperry dorm, a national historic landmark, was gutted.

Fortunately, the rest of the buildings survived the fiery onslaught.

The public reaction when photos of the burning building and the remaining rock walls of the chalet were published was shock and grief.

“I am utterly devastated that our beloved Chalet has been lost to the Sprague fire,” Geneva Warrington, a member of the extended Luding family which operates the chalet, posted on Instagram.

“Each and every person who was lucky enough to spend time here knows what a magical place it was, and what a terrible loss this is,” Geneva wrote. “My family has been incredibly blessed to get to share this magnificent place with the public for the past 63 years, and we are so very sad it has ended in this way.”

Kevin Warrington, Sperry Chalet co-ordinator for Belton Chalets, Inc., which operates the chalets, called the loss “a sad day.”

“I have been around Sperry for my entire life and I have never expected to see anything like this,” Kevin said. “It has been a privilege to share Sperry with the great many people that love it.”

Beth Dunagan of Whitefish, lamented: “My heart is breaking not just for my family, but for everyone who so dearly loved that chalet.”

Dunagan, another member of the extended Luding family and a former employee who recently wrote a book, Welcome to Sperry Chalet, about the place, spent all of her childhood summers and five years as an adult at the backcountry lodge.

“There’s no place on earth I’d rather be,” she told the Daily Inter Lake newspaper shortly after her book was published in 2013.

Dunagan’s book is as much a tribute to the chalet as it is to the Luding family, which has operated Sperry Chalet since 1954.

Sperry became a tourist destination in the early 1900s, after the Great Northern Railway paid Dr. Lyman Sperry to have students from the University of Minnesota build a trail from Lake McDonald to his namesake glacier, which he’d earlier located.

Upon the Glacier region being designated a national park in 1910, Great Northern president Louis Hill commissioned a series of camps be built for tourists on saddle horse trips. The tent camp near the present Sperry Chalet opened in 1911.

The first buildings appeared the following summer, 1912: two log cabins and a 22- by 80-foot dining room/kitchen complex made of locally quarried stone and lodgepole pine. The kitchen/dining room opened for business in 1913.

That same summer, work started on a 32- by 90-foot dormitory building, again made of rock and wood. It was finished and opened in the summer of 1914. The two-storey dorm had 23 guest rooms.

Both stone-and-wood structures at Sperry were designed by Spokane, Wash., architect Kirtland Cutter, who also created the plans for Lake McDonald Lodge, also opened that year, 1914.

Situated on the edge of a cirque 6,500 feet above sea level, the chalets offer a fantastic view of the surrounding mountains and down to Lake McDonald. The hike from the lake to the chalets is a rigorous 6.7 miles, gaining 3,300 feet in elevation.

Sperry Chalets were a popular destination for anyone wanting to visit the nearby glacier, and a welcome stop for tourists on saddle horse trips. During the Great Northern era, fresh bread and pastries were made daily, served at mealtimes by waitresses in uniform. Each bedroom had metal beds with springs and mattresses, a sink with cold running water, and chamber pots so guests wouldn’t have to go the outhouse during the night. Lighting came from kerosene lamps.

The creation of Going-to-the-Sun Road, along with the Great Depression, radically changed the nature of tourism to Glacier, to people driving themselves and fewer venturing on horse trips into the backcountry. By the 1950s the Great Northern Railway was looking to get out of the hospitality industry in Glacier, and in 1953 it sold the Sperry buildings to the National Park Service for $1.

While other chalet colonies the railway had built were razed due to lack of use, Sperry got a reprieve when the park service in 1954 leased the operation to Ross and Kathleen (Kay) Luding. It was the beginning of a six-decade long revival of the complex, with the Luding family starting and maintaining new traditions at the fabled site, so remote it is supplied by mule train arrivals each week.

Kay Luding, a sprite of a woman with boundless enthusiasm and a welcoming smile, became the heart of Sperry. In her book about Sperry Chalet, Beth Dunagan said Kay Luding always put others first:

“It doesn’t matter to me how many discomforts I have up here just to serve the public,” Kay Luding said. “I couldn’t care less, because I want our guests to have a memory they’ll take home with them that will last forever.”

She achieved her goal, turning Sperry into a spot where tourists champed at the bit to make a reservation for the following year, and openings were hard to find during the short, 60-day summer season in which it operated.

It is on the basis of that reputation, maintained by her son Lanny Luding and other generations of the extended family following Kay’s death, that has sparked the push to rebuild the fire-ravaged Sperry Chalet dorm building.

When Doug Mitchell, who had only taken on the top job at the Glacier Conservancy six weeks before, heard the news of the Sperry fire, he said: “This puts all hands on deck. We will marshal the troops and do what we can to help. Our mission is to be here for the long run.”

The conservancy has set up a page where the public can make contributions to its “Sperry Action Fund.” As a special thank you for any donations of $100 or more, the conservancy will send donors a limited edition 12- by 18-inch poster of Sperry created and donated by Roy E. Hughes, done while he was Glacier’s artist-in-residence in 2005.

With the conservancy’s support, a team of engineers has visited the site and is putting together a plan to stabilize the rock walls of the fire-charred dorm so they survive the winter, after which a decision will be made about whether they can be preserved for a rebuilding project. The plan is to have the supports for the walls in place before winter hits the higher altitudes in Glacier.

Park spokesperson Lauren Alley told the Flathead Beacon newspaper that approximately 100 beams will be brought to the site by helicopter to stabilize the remaining walls. The chimney will be secured with stabilization collars, and the gables will be surrounded with plywood.

“We want to protect the walls from wind and snow this winter,” Alley said.

Meanwhile, the Heritage Partnerships Program of the National Park Service is seeking blueprints of the Sperry Chalet dorm to assist in any rebuilding effort. The Heritage Partnerships Program helps citizens, agencies, organizations, and communities identify, document, interpret, protect, and preserve National Historic Landmarks within the eight-state Intermountain Region.

Fans of Glacier Park eagerly await news of the fate of what remains of the Sperry dorm, and the rebuilding plan.

Elsewhere, Glacier’s staff is looking at the huge job of cleaning up some 30 miles of trails where the Sprague fire swept through the Lake McDonald area, felling 1,900 trees on the hiking and riding paths.

Park spokesperson Lauren Alley said it’s possible that some popular routes, such as the Mount Brown Lookout trail, Snyder Lake trail and Sperry trail will be closed well into next year. The Lincoln Lake and Lincoln Creek trails were among the most heavily affected by the fire, she said, with two bridges damaged on Snyder Ridge.

Milder weather rain and snow had diminished the fire, which at last report before publication continued to smoulder. It had burned more than 17,000 acres in the park.