{"id":21958,"date":"2018-03-27T05:41:38","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T11:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=21958"},"modified":"2018-03-27T05:41:38","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T11:41:38","slug":"600-inches-of-snow-later-sperry-chalet-doing-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2018\/03\/600-inches-of-snow-later-sperry-chalet-doing-well\/","title":{"rendered":"600 inches of snow later, Sperry Chalet doing well"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"snow\"<\/a>

GravityShots.com via the Glacier National Park Conservancy<\/p>

Last October, a National Park Service crew placed 100 16-foot 6-by-6 beams, 24 24-foot 6-by-6 beams, and 24 sheets of three-quarter-inch plywood in and around the stone shell of Sperry Chalet. Their work appears to be holding, despite the above-normal snowpack.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sperry Chalet is filling with snow, but its talus-stone skeleton remains intact, an overflight of the historic Glacier National Park dormitory showed last week.<\/p>\n

Photographs taken from a helicopter revealed a noticeably deeper accumulation of snow inside the burned-out lodge than did similar photos taken during a February flight. Other buildings at the site, which were not burned, appeared to be nearly buried in the snow.<\/p>\n

But there was no sign of damage to the masonry left standing after an Aug. 31 ember storm ignited \u2014 and gutted \u2014 the chalet.<\/p>\n

An estimated 600 inches of snow have fallen at the site since Oct. 1, according to National Weather Service models, and that figure will continue to increase.<\/p>\n

“There has been at least 40 feet and quite likely 50 feet of snow this winter at or near Sperry Chalet,\u201d Corby Dickerson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Missoula, said Sunday. \u201cThat\u2019s above normal, but not at record value.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to think about how much snow does fall along the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park,\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cThese flyovers truly are the only way they could ever know how things were surviving up there during the harsh winter months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Glacier National Park Conservancy is funding three overflights this winter and spring at the park\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

Glacier Superintendent Jeff Mow has said the information is critical as the park evaluates the options for Sperry Chalet\u2019s future. If the walls collapsed, those options would change.<\/p>\n

Last fall, the conservancy also paid for a structural assessment and the raw materials and labor for emergency stabilization work just as the snow started to fall.\u00a0And fall it has, Dickerson reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been running above normal all winter long,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>While there are no SNOTEL sites in Glacier Park, the National Weather Service uses observational and modeling data to estimate snowfall in areas where there are no weather stations.\u00a0Those are the source of Dickerson\u2019s estimates.<\/p>\n

The snowpack\u2019s moisture content in the Flathead Basin as a whole is at 138 percent, or 38 percent above normal for March 25, Dickerson said.\u00a0Outside the park, the SNOTEL site at Flattop Mountain currently shows 133 inches of snow, with 50.2 inches of water in it. The average moisture content for this time of year is 41.1 inches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing,\u201d Dickerson said, \u201cis that across the entire area of Western Montana we are in a really great position as far as moisture and snowpack and where we stand as compared to previous years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Dickerson said there probably isn\u2019t a significant flooding concern for Sperry Chalet because of its 6,580-foot elevation in a glacial cirque overlooking Lake McDonald.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypically, the mountain snowpack melts slow and melts long,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo flooding is not as much of a problem, unless we get an extreme warmup or a heavy rainfall event causing a lot of on-surface melting.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally, the process of high-elevation snowmelt is a pretty managed process. It\u2019s downstream that things can become more problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dickerson said the melt-off usually starts in late April to early May, and continues to feed into the river system through the end of July or beginning of August.<\/p>\n

Superintendent Mow would like Sperry Chalet\u2019s reconstruction to begin this summer, once a decision is made on how to proceed. An architectural firm was hired earlier this month \u2014 Anderson and Hallas, the same Denver-based firm that spent more than a decade working on the renovation and stabilization of Many Glacier Hotel.<\/p>\n

\"sp[ring\"<\/a>

GravityShots.com via Glacier National Park Conservancy<\/p>

The Glacier National Park Conservancy financed last October\u2019s rapid stabilization of Sperry Chalet\u2019s stone fa\u00e7ade, as well as the overflights this winter and spring.<\/p><\/div>Glacier Park is accepting public comments through Monday, April 2 on its initial \u201cscoping\u201d of options for the future of Sperry Chalet.<\/p>\n

The Glacier National Park Conservancy has the architects\u2019 description and initial drawings of the four options on its website.<\/a> The options include:<\/p>\n

\u2666 Restoring the Sperry dormitory to as \u201cclose to as it was,\u201d reflecting its historically significant period (1914-1949). \u201cSuch an approach would provide for some critical updates to current building codes and improve life safety,\u201d the document said. \u201cThe visitor experience would be very similar to what it has been for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2666 Restoring the dormitory \u201cin place, but modernized,\u201d using as much of the \u201chistoric fabric\u201d as possible. \u201cThis type of approach would provide the best opportunity to ensure its use is well-suited for a visitor experience for the next 100 years,\u201d the park said. This option would include code upgrades, insulation between interior walls and some additional engineering and design work.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Building an entirely new structure, complementing the Sperry site\u2019s historic landscape, but placing the dormitory in a slightly different location to avoid the path of recent avalanches. The original dormitory\u2019s stone exterior walls, which survived the fire, would be stabilized and the park would provide \u201cvisitor interpretation\u201d of the historic structure.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Take an entirely different approach to providing the Sperry Chalet experience, such as yurts or canvas wall tents, as are used as some other national parks, including Yosemite. Those structures would be taken down at the end of each season. Tent cabins were used in the earliest years of the Sperry Chalet operation, before the dormitory was constructed. The remaining structures on site, including the historic dining hall, would be utilized. The walls of the dormitory would be stabilized and \u201cvisitor interpretation of the original structure as a ruin would be provided,\u201d the park said.<\/p>\n

Doug Mitchell, executive director of the Glacier conservancy, said his organization won\u2019t promote a specific option, as that\u2019s not its role or expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will play more the role of looking at what they are proposing and helping them think through how attractive that will or won\u2019t be in terms of private philanthropy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a role we play on lots of projects,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cThey\u2019ll say, we have an issue or a project, and we\u2019ll say that\u2019s something people really care about and we\u2019re all in, or possibly we\u2019ll say explain more about how that is attractive or important to the general user and the park experience. We\u2019ll be advisory, but won\u2019t advocate for a specific outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

No timeline or potential cost figures have been determined, although Sperry\u2019s rebuilding has been clearly stated as a priority for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Montana\u2019s two U.S. senators, Jon Tester and Steve Daines.<\/p>\n

Sperry Chalet is a significant addition to the Glacier conservancy\u2019s to-do list, Mitchell said, although funding for the dormitory\u2019s replacement will primarily come from the federal government.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, in scope of magnitude, Sperry Chalet is a huge undertaking in terms of the dollar amount and the historic significance,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWhile we can consider it our 52nd\u00a0or 53rd\u00a0project, the challenge is to make sure we can do that in an appropriate way. It could double the magnitude of our work. But we are up to the challenge and we believe the public is up to the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell encouraged all those interested in the chalet to take advantage of the last week of comment on the initial options.<\/p>\n

Documents can be reviewed and comments submitted online at this link.<\/a>\u00a0Or comments can be mailed to: Superintendent, Glacier National Park, Attn.: Sperry Chalet, P.O. Box 128, West Glacier, MT 59936.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sperry Chalet is filling with snow, but its talus-stone skeleton remains intact, an overflight of the historic Glacier National Park dormitory showed last week. Photographs taken from a helicopter revealed a noticeably deeper accumulation of snow inside the burned-out lodge than did similar photos taken during a February flight. Other buildings at the site, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":21959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[799,286,6869],"class_list":["post-21958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-glacier-national-park","tag-national-park-service","tag-sperry-park-chalet","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21958"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21967,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21958\/revisions\/21967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}