Landing area at Kain Hut. Flying equipment in for the opening as well as for the power system project. Photo Kish Begum.

Take an inside look at a season of hut servicing and building projects of the ACC facilities maintenance team.

When you operate the largest network of backcountry huts in North America, spread across a couple of different mountain ranges and with a couple dozen structures exposed to wild mountain conditions, staying on top of chores will keep a team busy. The ACC’s hut maintenance team is a dedicated, skilled bunch that work hard all year long, but the summertime is when their calendars are blocked off and stacked up to make big progress.

Here’s a look at what they’ve been up to this past summer.

Hut maintenance work falls into two broad categories: service work and capital projects. The larger capital projects include any renovation or construction work on the outside or the interior of the huts and outbuildings (outhouse, woodshed), and are different for each trip. Service trips are for the more regular, recurring—but never boring—tasks.

Firewood in, poop out

ACC huts run on propane, firewood, and to a lesser extent, solar and wind power. Guests in the club’s huts will burn 50 to 60 cords of firewood in a year!

Helicopters fly into huts with nets of firewood, 600-pound propane tanks (pigs) and fly out with full outhouse barrels. Barrels are emptied at the staging area with a pumper truck, and then cycled back into inbound flights. Service trips are labour-intensive, with chimney sweeping, fire extinguisher replacement, small repairs and wood chucking all part of a regular day.

Some of the smaller, more remote huts see service every two years, but most huts are visited each year by the team. Elizabeth Parker, Bow and Conrad Kain Huts are serviced at both the beginning and the end of the summer season.

Capital projects

Bigger projects such as hut upgrades, renovations or any kind of larger construction jobs are planned separately from the annual service trips. They’ll involve the team flying into the hut with the plans, materials, tools and supplies they need and staying in the hut until the job is completed.

With 26 huts to maintain, the list of projects is long. Typically, a summer will see a few capital projects planned but 2023 was a busy season as we catch up after some slower summers during COVID.

Top left: Installation of solar panels at Kain Hut. Photo Tom Fransham. Top right: Tom Fransham and Anthony Baker of Bugaboo Contracting with the Kain Hut micro hydro unit. Photo Tom Fransham. Bottom left: Bow Hut solar panel installation, September. Photo Tom Fransham. Centre right: New cladding in process at Peyto Hut. Photo Bill Cardinal. Bottom right: New furniture at Peyto Hut. Photo Bill Cardinal.

2023 Capital Projects

Conrad Kain Hut

The annual start in the Bugaboos is scheduled for late June when the winter snow is almost gone, and the electrical system can be fired up. This year the micro-hydro was replaced with a new, smaller system, which was offset by the installation of a new solar array and battery bank.

Kokanee Glacier Cabin

In early July, the team stained, painted and took care of repairs and upgrades to the bridges, outhouses and campground cook shelters that the club maintains.

Woodbury and Silver Spray Cabins

While the team was in the Nelson area servicing Kokanee, they spent some days at the other two huts that the club operates in the park, and took care of repair work to decks, roofs and foundations.

Fairy Meadow Hut

A major 10-day construction project in August saw the roof of the hut replaced, along with significant interior upgrades.

Peyto Hut

Another major project in August, the most northerly hut on the Wapta got a new roof along with new metal cladding and insulation for all the walls.

Bow Hut

September saw the team back on the Wapta for two weeks, making big upgrades to one of the club’s busiest huts. A vestibule was added at the front door, the breezeway was renovated, and new moisture control systems were installed, including a heat recovery ventilator, hood fans and venting. These systems are powered by a new solar array and guests will notice LED lighting replacing the old propane lights as well as new USB charging stations (BYO cables).

Logistics

On the macro scale, planning for a summer’s work begins in the winter: lining up schedules and permits, procuring materials, arranging staging areas and coordinating vehicles, pumper trucks and outside contractors. It’s also a time to build hut furniture in the shop in Canmore.

Hucking firewood at Elizabeth Parker Hut. Photo Reece Mysko.

On flying days, however, the planning takes on a more fluid quality, becoming a complicated dance of coordinating loads, personnel and flight times: triangulating huts and flying distances, and working within the constraints of shifting mountain weather to keep the flight time and costs to a minimum. When it comes to managing helicopter fuel levels, at first look it would seem to make sense to fill the helicopter’s tank to full and to fly loads until the machine needs to refuel. But fuel is heavy, and it turns out there are significant efficiencies in running the machine with just enough in the tank, carrying more weight on the long lines and refueling more often.

Another counterintuitive trick for shaving flight and fuel time is to spread out the loads over several return flights. An unladen helicopter, flying with a long line dangling free, must fly very slowly to prevent the hook from flying up into the rotor. If you add a single 500-pound outhouse barrel to the trip out from the hut (the machine can carry three), the flight out can be done at full speed and save time and money.

Top: Claude Durupt hooking up a propane tank for longlining. Bottom left: Matt Lapinskie preparing slings for barrels at Elizabeth Parker Hut. Centre right: Elizabeth Parker Hut. Bottom right: Helicopter work at Elizabeth Parker Hut. All photos Reece Mysko

It's been a productive summer. Guests will be cozy in our huts this winter, and the cycle of planning, scheduling, and gearing up for another busy maintenance season will begin again next spring. — ACC

Bow Hut Renovations

Read more about the overhaul at Bow Hut that took place in 2023 on the blog.

A summer in the life: adventures with the 2023 ACC maintenance team