How can a 9300sq.ft. ski lodge be built in just six months when it took over three months to finish your downstairs bathroom? Now, place
project at 5250 ft elevation in Canadian Rocky Mountains, 90 km from nearest paved road, and it’s easy to think, “Mission Impossible” In July 2002, four owners of Chatter Creek Mountain Lodges faced a plot of cleared land and a pile of almost 300 green spruce logs, 100 of them having been peeled by hand. By end of December 2002, owners had welcomed 24 clients to their new lodge. The beds were made, larder was full, bar was stocked and hot tub was steaming. Vertebrae Lodge was open for business!
Chatter Creek Mountain Lodges is a snowcat skiing and snowboarding tour operator based in Golden, British Columbia. Chatter Creek offers full-service backcountry skiing experiences for powder snow skiers and snowboarders. Intermediate and advanced skiing groups are expertly guided throughout 130 sq. km operating area. Guests ride in comfortable heated snowcats to experience skiing and riding on a high glacier, in open alpine bowls and through forest glades.
For two years, Chatter Creek hosted groups of 12 clients in their original Spruce Lodge. Guests enjoyed dormitory style accommodation, outdoor plumbing and a close relationship with one another and with staff. The “Spruce Goose” became a special place to many guests who fondly remember their early cat skiing days at Chatter Creek.
The new Vertebrae Lodge, named after a spectacular nearby ridge, accommodates 24 guests in 12 comfortable bedrooms, each with private bathroom. The lodge boasts well-furnished sitting areas, and a large dining hall with a vaulted ceiling. It has a well-equipped commercial kitchen, a large drying room for boots and outside clothes, massage rooms, a games room with a pool table, a well-stocked bar and an outdoor hot tub, complete with bar service. Quite a step up from Spruce Lodge!
The Chatter Creek building site posed a challenge. The only building material within reach was green spruce from surrounding forest. There was no sand, no gravel, no cement and certainly no neighborhood lumberyard.
The nearest town is Golden, a 120 km drive to south. The nearest paved road is 90km away, at Donald. Access from Donald is first by logging road and then by a rough, boggy summer road that climbs last 17 km. to lodge. Four wheel drive pickup trucks can make trip in summer, when access road is dry but, in spring, only tracked vehicles can get through, unassisted.
The owners, all ex-loggers, were prepared for challenge. They had already brought a small Alaska-style sawmill to site, to build Spruce Lodge. The “Spruce Goose” had been completed following a two-year part-time effort. It was built of 5in. x 10in. square-sawn spruce beams. The new lodge would be built of round logs, with much longer and higher walls than any in Spruce Lodge, and with a much, much larger roof.
The Chatter Creek cat skiing business was so popular and guests were so enthusiastic that partners knew that they could expand to 24 clients. Certainly, they had terrain for it: 50 sq miles of glaciers, alpine slopes and bowls, and huge forested ridges. They already had a good network of winter roads for their snowcats, a good basis for an expanded operation. These roads extended from below lodge site, at about 4900-ft elevation, to top of Vertebrae Glacier at just under 10,000 ft. They traversed both sides of Chatter Creek watershed and numerous ridges that provided thousands of acres of prime tree skiing.
The challenge was to build new lodge in one short summer. This would not be just a scaled up Spruce Lodge, but a large comfortable building with a reliable water system, extensive plumbing, a commercial kitchen, fire suppression and a septic system that would meet all environmental codes. Could they do it in one summer? Financial constraints required it.
All through early spring, partners Dale and Dan selectively logged trees they would need, using snowcats to skid them to lodge site. Friends were brought in to help hand-peel logs with drawknives and peeling spuds. These logs would form major walls. The remaining logs would be milled to provide beams and dimensional lumber for inside framing and massive roof.
Meanwhile, partner Dave buried himself in plans and cost estimates and fretted about environmental and health and building codes, and lined up suppliers for mechanical systems. The planning seemed to take forever. There were so many questions!
It was clear that some new equipment would be required to assist construction. The building would have two floors topped by a large attic space. A crane was needed to lift heavy logs into place. Other techniques were far too slow. Also, existing mill was far too small and too slow for job. A much bigger and more accurate mill was needed.
A brand new computer-controlled Wood-Mizer sawmill was purchased. Its 45’ deck would handle big logs and cutting rate would provide needed throughput. For heavy lifting, a used 20 ton ex-army mobile crane was found. With a 90 ft boom, it would clear high roof.
Getting this equipment to site in late spring was a challenge. The road was still wet and boggy in many places. The sawmill was loaded onto a Ford F450 that was towed by bulldozer. With it’s 6ft. diameter tires it was hoped that four wheel drive crane could travel on it’s own. An excavator stood by to help.
It took three days to go just 14km. The crane got stuck time and again. The excavator repaired road and dug out crane when its great wheels sunk in mud. It pushed and it towed, pulling crane along as it struggled through deep mud. The long line of equipment inched its way up road to Chatter Creek building site.
Getting equipment to site was one challenge, keeping it running would be another. The project relied on continuous operation of crane, mill and venerable excavator. The sawmill was brand new and very reliable. However, mobile crane was an unknown with limited parts available and excavator was a doddering geriatric having had constant use for many years. The partners could rely on no one but themselves to keep these machines in operation.
By second week of July site was clear and level and logs were ready. The foundations could be set. No other materials were at hand, so largest available spruce butts were used, set upright in pits.
By mid-July, walls were started and outline of lodge could be seen. There would be two bays, a 40ft x 40ft bay for two floors of bedrooms and baths and a 40ft x 50ft bay for common space.
