Sperry flights alone could cost $1 million

Helicopter flights to ferry supplies up into the hills to rebuild the Sperry Chalet are estimated to cost about $1 million over the course of the project, Glacier Park officials said Monday night during a meeting on the plan to rebuild the structure.

The projected cost of the rebuild and the helicopter flights were a main topic of discussion during a public meeting Monday night on the plan to rebuild the chalet. The Park doesn’t yet have a firm estimate on the budget for the rebuild. The chalet was gutted by the Sprague Fire on Aug. 31 last year. All that remains is the stone walls. The plan is to rebuild the chalet within those walls, to historic, but more modern standards that are up to code.

“We’re still working on budget numbers,” Glacier superintendent Jeff Mow said. “Still, it’s a range of $8 million to $12 million.”

A contractor who was in the audience openly wondered how the Park could get the job completed in two years. He noted that it took three years just to build a toilet at Sperry Chalet.

Even Mow conceded it was an awfully quick timeline by Park Service standards and said the direction was coming from Washington, D.C.

“This whole thing is being expedited,” Mow said. “That’s all I can say ... the goal is to get Sperry up and running as soon as possible.”

Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke has said in the past that he supports rebuilding the chalet. Funds will come from a blend of government and private sources, like the Glacier National Park Conservancy. Though the bulk of the funding will come from the federal government. The Conservancy paid to have the stone walls stabilized before winter set in.

The hope is to start reconstruction of the structure within the existing walls by July 1. But an awful lot has to come together in the next couple of months for that to happen. The environmental assessment should be done by mid-May and then the project will go out to bid shortly thereafter.

But with the construction season in full swing and the Flathead Valley booming, Park officials were concerned that local companies might not even bid on the project.

The architecture firm of Anderson Hallas, which has been retained by the Park Service, has to complete the plans for the rebuild.

In addition to the bidding concerns, there’s a host of logistical concerns as well — namely snow, and lots of it.

The Gunsight Pass Trail, which leads to the chalet, is still buried under several feet of snow. There’s also an estimated 300 to 600 trees down over the trail from the fire.

“We’ll be chasing the snow up, clearing the trail,” Deputy Superintendent Eric Smith said.

In addition to helicopter flights, about 35 to 60 pack strings will be used to haul supplies up to the chalet. July 1 might seem like summer to most, but at Sperry, snow is almost certain with the snowpack this year well above average. Crews will likely have to dig the structure out by hand just to get at it.

The helicopter flights were a note of concern with the public as well, they wanted to know if a flight path had been determined. The answer was yes and no. The flight path would avoid flying over roads and structures, facilities manager Jim Foster noted, but a final flight plan would ultimately be decided once a staging area for supplies had been set.

Smith said the expectation is the flights would likely be compressed into a few days to get supplies to the structure. They wouldn’t likely be back and forth every day throughout the summer. The Park estimates it could take as many as 220 flights to ferry supplies up there, but some days could see 40, 50 flights in a day. The military is interested in doing some flights as a training exercise, but they’d only amount to four or five flights, Smith noted.

In the first phase, the plan is to have the superstructure inside the chalet completed and a roof on it before winter sets in. The Park hopes to have crews up there until Oct. 31. That also seemed optimistic, since Glacier’s high country often sees snowstorms by early October.

Despite the construction activity, Smith said the plan is to open trails as much as possible and there will also be an area where people can watch the reconstruction. The Sperry campground will also be open this summer.

The dining hall, which wasn’t burned in the fire, could also be used to feed crews, but there hasn’t been a final determination on that. It’s estimated it will take a dozen to two dozen construction workers to complete the work.

The chalet, if all goes well, would be fully finished by the fall of 2019.

Not everyone is in favor of rebuilding the chalet. Residents Jack Fairchild and Bill Baum both said they objected to the rebuild, noting the impacts on grizzly bears and the surrounding wilderness. But they’re in the minority, most people who commented on early scoping want the chalet rebuilt.