Combining WORK and PARTY

It's been awhile since I've had the time to post. I just spent a week as part of a workparty repairing the Bill Putnam Hut at Fairy Meadows. This ACC hut is set in the Adamant Range of the Selkirk Mtns on the west side of Kinbasket Lake (that's NW of Golden...). Many more pictures can be seen on the SK Section's Trip Reports page.

As I've said before, opportunities like this make up a large part of what I value about my membership in the Alpine Club of Canada. Where else could you get all the food you could eat, a daily supply of beer and wine and work like a dog for a week, for free, all in some of the most beautiful and fantastic scenery you could imagine.

In brief, this whole thing involved driving on another BC Forest Service Road 98 km up the east side of Kinbasket Lake (aka Columbia River), preparing loads for helicopter lift across the lake and high up to the hut, and working steadily for a week on a long list of projects on the hut.

This hut has already received a sizeable amount of work in the past year. Last summer (2006), there were two separate workparties (August: 3 weeks; October: 5 days) and then this past week. Obviously, repairs to the hut were long overdue, plus there was some damage from the heavy snow levels last winter, but personally I feel it's an indication that the Club isn't spending or can't spend what's needed to maintain these primary assets that it owns.

These projects are very expensive, and a good chunk of the money is allocated to helicopter costs to ferry people and stuff to and from these remote huts. The fact is, though, that the ACC derives a significant part of its income from huts; Fairy Meadows is booked solid all winter as an important ski destination. There has been an ongoing debate within the Club for several (many?) years about injecting more of the Club's revenue back into its huts.

Obviously, I'd say, a solution needs to be found. The ACC operates 23 huts and owns many of them (some belong to BC Parks or other organizations who don't have the expertise or resources to operate them). If you do one major workparty each year to deal with the issues at one hut, you can see that each hut would seldom receive significant attention. Although ACC maintenance crews visit each hut one or more times each year, there simply isn't enough time during those visits to do the scraping, painting and minor (but essential) work that buildings in such severe environments really need. A case in point: I've heard that one remote hut will be "decommissioned" next year simply because it's become so run down it isn't worth fixing. Plus, it's remote and not often used. Still, it's probably too bad it can't be saved.

Anyhow, despite the limitations imposed by budgets and personnel, these workparties are great experiences. The leadership and organization on this workparty was excellent and I certainly felt that my work was appreciated and that all of us were kept "in the big picture". I always meet interesting, skilled and dedicated people, the setting couldn't be better, the food is always great, and the feeling of satisfaction you get from helping out in this way just can't be beat.