This first (and only!) book on trail towns outlines the history of the concept, discusses its future, and, best of all, distills what Amy Camp has learned in 13 years of working with towns that decided to make a trail part of their culture. Her work is grounded in the interconnectedness of nature and human culture; she views trails as a way to connect individuals and communities to the natural world. Her work in developing trail towns is guided by Aldo Leopold’s dictum, “A system of conservation that is based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided.“
Amy’s 7 practices focus not simply on economic development — widely viewed the main purpose of trail towns — but emphasize the secret ingredients of memorable trail towns: creating a trail culture that engages locals in the trail, that invites visitors to learn the stories and enjoy the local hospitality of the community, and that makes the trail an authentic part of local culture. Camp makes a key contribution to the idea of trail towns by cautioning against relentless interest in economic benefits to the town, and shifting the focus to the relationship of the community to the trail.
Amy was in the right place at the right time. In 2007 she began working with a team to establish the first U.S. trail town program. The Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) is a rails-to-trails bike path connecting 18 towns, each of which has found its own ways to connect bikers to their town as they travel along the 150 mile trail. At the same time the Appalachian Trails Conservancy (ATC) was beginning to think about how it could to connect the 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail to communities along its corridor. While working with the GAP Trails Town program Amy and her team began to share what GAP was learning with ATC and other trails groups. Today there are 50 A.T. Community towns along the Appalachian Trail; other US long distance hiking trails, including the North Country Trail (29 trail towns) and Continental Divide Trail (18 Gateway communities) have developed programs, training, guidelines, and related resources. In 2013 Camp’s passion for trail towns blossomed into a consulting business, Cycle Forward, a platform for networking with and assisting trails towns throughout the U.S. and Canada.
But long distance hiking trails are just one type of trail that encourages the development of trail towns. Many are on comparatively short trails, using a range of modes of travel, including hiking, skiing, kayakingsome equestrian trails, and lots of bike trails. Camp’s book lists 21 established trail town programs encompassing more than 150 towns in 25 states/provinces across the U.S. and Canada. Throughout the book she gives examples of how they got established, creative ideas and programs implemented, challenges faced, and common myths, objections and caveats. And Camp details different operating models. From her experience consulting, leading workshops, doing training, and leading trips she has developed a set of broad and deep perspectives on trail towns, which are distilled as a set of practices. This is the inspiring core of the book.
7 practices of healthy trail communities
These are some questions/challenges addressed in each of the 7 principles chapters:
1. Adopt a shared vision
How do you engage a town in developing a shared vision? How can the trail and the vision be built into town planning strategies? How do you communicate this vision to citizens of the town and to visitors?
2. Physically connect trail to town
How do you create a safe and enticing route connecting town to trail? How to make it seem worth the trouble to leave the trail for a while? Strategies for using welcome signs, business directories, brochures, interpretive signs, plantings, public art, ride services, shuttles, maps, etc.
3. Extend an invitation to your trail town
How to make a town a friendly place to stop? What is hospitality and how do you make visitors feel welcome? Are businesses trail friendly? Are the locals trail users? Do locals identify with the trail?
4. Cultivate a trail culture
If culture is a way of life, what does it mean to have a “trail culture”? How do you jump start a trail culture in a new trail town? How do you celebrate the trail? How do you brand a town as a trail town? What are the consequences of not cultivating a trail culture? How to handle a culture clash when some folks don’t like or support the trail?
5. Know your trail towns market
How to determine the demographics of trail users? What do they like and need? How much are they spending? What are the measures of economic impact? How does a community offer memorable trail experiences and connect folks with the authentic sense of the place?
6. Share your trail towns story
What is the story of your town and how do you tell it? Describe what a sense of place means to the folks who live in your town. What are the key themes? How to stay authentic and keep from losing the town’s soul through overtoursim?
7. Commit to quality trails
What is a quality trail? Who builds and takes care of the trail? What are the special features and what is the destination appeal of the trail?
Audience Filled with anecdotes and ideas, Deciding on Trails is fun to read and inspiring. It is a must-read for people who live in trails towns, operate businesses and provide services near trails, town councils and government officials, and trail professionals. While not written for a general audience, it will also be of interest to folks who find themselves travelling near trail towns. Having learned through this book what it takes to create a trail town, my own experience of them is enriched. While I’ve always enjoyed exploring towns near trails and learning about them, my perspective is deepened and I know about what to look for in appreciating them! Deciding on Trails opens one’s eyes to what connects travelers to the towns they pass through, and how communities host travellers, tell their stories, and create an authentic trail culture. This book should be in public libraries in every town near a trail, and in libraries serving the travelling public.
Trail towns and the future of American trails Reading this thought-provoking book prompts speculation about the future of new front country trails in the USA. Rails-to-Trails, National Scenic Trails and other trails programs appear to be gradually leading the our nation closer to a European (actually, common around the world) model of walking and biking village-to-village, staying in village hostelries and, when between villages, in backcountry huts. While our geography and history are very different, the trend towards connecting urban, suburban and regional front country trail systems is definitely providing more people with access to trails. And it is embedding walking into the cultures of more cities and towns.
Of course we will always celebrate and protect our wild and wonderful backcountry trails. But as USA becomes an increasingly urban nation (80% of us live in cities and suburbs), we are innovating with a range of approaches to front country trails. Many seem to be looking more like those of the European Ramblers, as outlined in their Leading Quality Trails/Best of Europe program criteria. These criteria include designing trails with: a range of accommodations along the way (in addition to camping options), provision of services along the way (e.g. eating, shopping for groceries), access points for shuttles and/or public transport, a careful mix of wild nature and city/village cultures (e.g. museums and other local attractions), and resting places for picnics, etc.
Being proactive in trail design with these considerations is central to the trail towns philosophy. Providing opportunities for engagement with both natural and cultural history along the way, for learning the story of the landscapes and communities you pass through, and for connecting people and fostering vibrant trail cultures is what it is all about — the world over! These concepts are clearly articulated in this great little book!
With the Mountain Hut Book, the prolific and trusted guidebook author Kev Reynolds offers an enjoyable and highly informative tour of the hut experience, and recommends some favorite huts and hut to hut traverses. The book is an invitation to new audiences – outdoor enthusiasts whom the author is convinced will become hut-to-hut hikers once he uncovers mysteries shrouding this venerable pastime. Hut novices will come away from this delightful prose traverse of alpine huts full of ideas about where they want to go, what to expect, and how to plan a hut trip.
[For a firsthand feel for the book read an excerpt (at the end of this review) from the first chapter.]
What is a hut, anyway?
Reynolds skillfully charts the evolution of alpine huts from primitive
mountain shelters to comfortable hostelries “claiming eco-friendly credentials”.
Two definitions frame the subject: Walt
Unsworth, Encyclopaedia of Mountaineering,
1992 offers the original definition of huts as shelters for mountaineers: “a
mountain hut is a purpose-built refuge situated at some strategically high
place in the mountains so that one or more peaks are readily accessible from
it. It may vary in size from a simple
bivouac shelter to something resembling a small hotel in size and
facilities.” Contrast this specialized
notion of the hut with Reynolds’ modern mountain hut: “A bit like a youth
hostel, offering simple, reasonably priced accommodation and meals in a magical
setting for visitors taking part in mountain activities.”
The mountain huts Reynolds extolls are far from the rudimentary garden shed or simple wooden cabin that the word “hut” conjures for many. This book radiates the author’s enthusiasm, and his many positive experiences. He revels in the architecture: “I love the diversity, the sheer variety of hut buildings.” Photographs, mostly by the author, confirm this observation—readers see small stone huts, large stucco lodges, and a few highly sculptural modernist structures.
Kev Reynolds, courtesy literaryfestivals.co.uk
At the heart of the hut experience is, of course, the gorgeous mountain setting. As a serious outdoorsman and guide, Reynolds provides perspective on how huts support trekkers, climbers, walkers, and wildlife watchers in indulging their passion for high altitude pursuits day after day. The experience of taking shelter, and overnighting at the hut is central to this avocation. Reynolds warmly conveys his appreciation of hut warden hospitality — with delightful sketches of some venerable hut guardians — and conjures the convivial atmosphere of mountain huts. “Arrival at a hut invariably comes with a sense of relief, for it’s a guarantee of shelter, somewhere to relax, freshen up, slake your thirst and settle the nagging hunger that comes from a long day’s effort.” Chapter two initiates the reader into the joys of hut life. With friendly conversational prose, Reynolds provides personal accounts, memories, impressions and information on everything from sleeping and eating, to bathrooms to sociability.
Hut conviviality, courtesy Kev Reynolds
While The Mountain Hut Book is not as detailed as many of Reynolds other 50 guidebooks, it provides expert practical direction to those fired up to learn more. The chapter “Top Ten Huts” highlights a tiny but well chose sampling of these structures, in Switzerland, France, Italy, and Austria. Not surprisingly, the European Alps are closest to Reynolds’ heart; he started his career as a mountaineer and guide, and has written extensively on hiking, mostly in the high heart of Europe. “Hut to Hut,” the next chapter, presents a selection of ten classic multi-day routes in order of difficulty. Illustrated with photographs of massive peaks which dwarf huts below, pristine lakes, verdant meadows, the descriptions are guaranteed to get the reader dreaming about their next walks. This chapter includes clear maps, brief but useful route descriptions, and practical information including hiking times, level of difficulty and scenic features. Recommended guidebooks, many available from Cicerone Press, include even more detail about these classic walks.
Plan Sec Hut, Photo by Jonathan Williams, Courtesy Cicerone Press
Triglav Hut, Slovenia, Courtesy Kev Reynolds
Finally, Reynolds sketches in the larger context mountain accommodations. Looking beyond the European alps, he offers brief information about bothies, lodges and huts in other parts of the world. Reynolds omits information about huts in Greece, Slovenia, Scandinavia, Australia and elsewhere. His focus is on high mountain huts; the book is not intended as a comprehensive view of huts. Using the European alps as the model, it admirably evokes and explains the mystique of the high alpine hut experience. The Mountain Hut Book fills a gap in the literature and is highly recommended for purchase as a gift – for ones-self, friends and family – and for purchase by libraries serving communities with interest in the outdoors.
By Laurel Bradley and Sam Demas, January 2019
Excerpt from Chapter 1 of the book, courtesy Cicerone Press:
(Note: this is part of the larger work New Zealand Huts: Notes towards a Country Study)
Following is a very brief selection of publications, web sites and organizations to begin delving into the world of New Zealand huts. There is a rich literature on huts and tramping in NZ, I recommend starting with two indispensable books:
Shelter From the Storm by Shaun Barnett, Rob Brown, and Geoff Spearpoint (Craig Potton Publishing, 2012).
Tramping a New Zealand History, by Shaun Barnett and Chris Maclean (Craig Potton Publishing, 2014).
The bibliographies and footnotes in these amazing works will immediately lead you deep into the relevant literature.
–>For a brief introduction, even better, read the downloadable reprint of the Introduction to Shelter From the Storm; this essay by Shaun Barnett is an excellent introduction to NZ huts.
Also by Barnett, Brown and Spearpoint A Bunk for the Night: A Guide to New Zealand’s Best Backcountry Huts, Potton & Burton, 2016(?).
Other insightful works on huts and tramping include works by Mark Pickering, notably:
A Trampers Journey, Craig Potton Publishing, 2004.
Huts: untold stories from back-country NZ, Canterbury University Press, 2010.
The Hills, Heinemann Reid, 1988.
Golden Bay writer Gerard Hindmarsh has written about huts in some of the essays in his Kahurangi Calling, Potton and Burton, 2010, and Kahurangi Stories, Potton and Burton, 2017.
NZ huts are best understood within the context of environmental conservation and the role of humans in this fabulously beautiful, remote landscape.
For a quick, informative and stimulating sense of the broader landscape/environmental history of NZ, see: Michael King’s magisterial overview Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin Books, 2012. While a 500-page book can only skim the surface of a nation’s history, this one does it very well. For most of us, dipping into chapters selectively is more manageable than reading the entire book. The first few chapters set the pre-historic and early history, chapter 11 on the seminal Treaty of Waitangi is useful (even more so is the Wikipedia article), and Chapter 26, land under pressure, briefly provides invaluable historical context on environmental history.
Wild Heart: the possibility of wilderness in Aotearoa New Zealand, edited by Mick Abbott and Richard Reeve, Otago University Press, 2011. These 17 essays by trampers, conservationists, historians, writers, scientists, and conservationists provide useful perspective on how Kiwi’s are thinking about the nature, roles, uses and protection of wilderness today. It gives a good sense of the many ways in which wildness is “at the nation’s psychological and physical core”.
Environmental historian Geoff Parks’s provocative Theatre Country: essays on landscape and Whenua, Victoria University Press, 2006. The Maori word whenua means both placenta and people, and this series of essays explores how New Zealanders – indigenous and colonial — are, and are not, connected to the land they occupy. Parks’ thinking about wilderness and landscape seems to be in the spirit of William Cronon, but with a distinctive Kiwi sensibility. The essays range widely, discussing the historical views of landscape and the picturesque imported from British romanticism, nature tourism, and it frames New Zealand’s approach to landscape as a profoundly and misguidedly dichotomous insistence on dividing the nation into two distinct theatrical scenes, both playing out on a national stage largely outside the critical awareness of the actors: 1. the intensively cultivated 51% of the land, and 2. the highly protected, puristic notion of “wilderness” characterized by DoC’s management regime for the 33%
A few relevant websites:
NZ Department of Conservation With persistent, creative searching, this extensive website will yield a wealth of information and perspective.
Tramper.co.nz – A great site for locating tracks to walk and learning about the range of tramping and huts in NZ.
Remote Huts A valuable online forum for those interested in the preservation and restoration of remote huts and tracks. Includes information about Permolat.
Backcountry Trust Information about grants and projects of this remarkable hut and track maintenance program, funded in large part by DoC.
Facebook sites for “Shelter from the Storm”, the Backcountry Trust, and the Federated Mountain Clubs, and other groups are great for staying up to date on developments and for networking.
NZ Alpine Club source for climbers and information about a network of alpine huts.
Wilderness Magazine , an excellent print and online publication, also has a useful website.
Federated Mountain Clubs A key outdoors organization representing 80 clubs, FMC is at the nexus of outdoors activity and information. Their brief includes advocacy and information/ publishing. Their quarterly magazine Backcountry, available in print and online, is an indispensable source of information about huts, tramping and outdoor activities generally. Their page providing links to other websites is a great place to start exploring beyond what is listed above.
{Photo above by John Rhodes, courtesy Shaun Barnett}
Shelter from the Storm: the story of New Zealand’s backcountry huts deeply influenced my understanding of huts and how they are — in addition to shelter — both evolving cultural reflections of the terrain and the society in which they exist, and also manifestations of human relationship to nature. I was so excited when I first read the book that I wrote an extended review in hopes of increasing sales/readership in the USA. While traveling in New Zealand I learned how profoundly the book has shifted Kiwi perceptions of huts as a treasured elements of culture and history. As an offshoot of talking with the authors and the publisher I pieced together a little bit about the genesis of the book and its publishing history. Talking with trampers all over New Zealand I heard repeatedly about how the book has shifted perceptions and the national conversations about huts. I am now even more impressed by the book and am moved to share my deepened enthusiasm.
The full impact of this book has likely only begun to play out. It is a classic. While I am clearly not the best person to write about its publishing history, what follows is the germ of a story I really want to tell to my hut friends in the USA. So, I am moved to jot here some threads about the publishing history of this book, musings about its impact in New Zealand, and some personal notions about the future of huts.
Sperry Chalet: historic hut in Glacier National Park
[Featured image (1914) above by Fred Kiser, Courtesy Ray Djuff Collection]
By Sam Demas, October 2017
Sperry Chalet, a much-loved historic hut in Glacier National Park, came to national attention on August 31, 2017 when the main lodge, or “dormitory” was badly burned. Sadly, I never visited Sperry. This is not a first-hand account; like many others, I still hope to get there some day. Efforts are underway to rebuild and re-open this early exemplar of high mountain hospitality. May they succeed!
This post is an appreciation of Sperry Chalet as one of the oldest and most beloved high mountain huts in the nation. It sketches the hut’s history and architecture, and briefly treats its prolific namesake Lyman Beecher Sperry. This post is based entirely on secondary sources, mainly the work of Ray Djuff, but others as well. Apologies in advance if any errors crept into my account.
For fuller information about the present and future — i.e. the Sperry fire, present conditions and efforts to re-build — please see the article by Ray Djuff, which he kindly granted Hut2Hut.info permission to print and the October 19 Glacier National media releasereporting on the stabilization efforts to help the structure (which lost its roof and floor) weather the winter.
Sperry Fire, August 31, 2017, Courtesy National Park Service
5 helicopter trips were needed to transport all stabilization materials to the Sperry Chalet, Courtesy National Park Service
Sperry Chalet (Oct 2017) stabilized after fire in preparation for winter, Courtesy National Park Service
For fuller historical information about Sperry Chalet see chapter 10 (p. 128-137) of Glacier’s Historic Hotels and Chalets: View With a Room by Ray Djuff and Chris Morrison (Farcountry Press, 2001). For a touching, first hand post conveying the depth of affection Sperry has engendered among park visitors and staff, see Courtney Stone’s Remembering a Grand Lady: the Loss of Sperry Chalet, 1913-2017. And the website of the National Park Lodge Architecture Society.
Origins of the second oldest hut system in the U.S.
Between 1913-1915 the Great Northern Railway (GNR) built a system of nine Backcountry Chalets (see my separate post on this early hutsystem)and four hotels to provide park visitors with horseback (and hiking) access to the interior of the park. This makes it the second oldest hut system in the USA, and until sometime in the 1930’s or 40’s it seems to have been the nation’s largest hut system.
Until the 2017 fire, Sperry and Granite Park Chalets were the last remaining backcountry chalets in this once-grand hut system. The Glacier huts (and hotels) were sited in places of great natural beauty, each one a day’s horseback ride apart from another lodging option. Designed in the style of Swiss Chalets, these hut complexes were part of the railroad’s efforts to market Glacier as “America’s Switzerland”, as part of a promotional campaign aimed a wealthy Americans to “see America first”. See the introduction to Glacier’s Historic Hotels and Chalets: View With a Room for an excellent overview of this ambitious initiative advanced by Minnesota railroad barons James Jerome Hill (the Empire Builder) and his son Louis Warren Hill, Sr.
Sperry Chalet: quick historical sketch
Built on the precipice of a magnificent cirque, Sperry Chalet offers some of the finest views in Glacier and provides access to to nearby Sperry Glacier. The Great Northern Railroad was anxious to build on this strategic site to gain a monopoly on access to one of the most popular destinations in the park.
Legally designated a National Park in 1910, the Great Northern Railway (GNR) was quick to establish a near monopoly on lodging in Glacier. Sperry was just one of a dozen or more construction projects initiated soon after formal designation as a national park. At Sperry a tent camp was constructed in 1911 and hosted 461 visitors in 1912, its first season. Construction on the stone kitchen and dining hall began in 1912 and the facility opened in 1913. The “dormitory” — accommodating 75 guests — was constructed in 1913 and opened in 1914, and supplemented by a tent camp (which operated until WWI) accommodating another 75 guests.
The hut is accessed by 6.7 mile trail from Lake McDonald (with a 3,300′ elevation gain) and a gentler, scenic 13.7 miles through Gunsight Pass. The blazing of the trail to the site of Sperry Chalet is an interesting story related below. Accessible only by horse or by foot, Sperry Chalet is renowned for its views, remoteness, and its mountain hospitality during its 60 day operating season. Even without electricity, the level of amenities made for genteel comfort in a backcountry setting. In the early days lighting was provided by kerosene lamps, running cold water was available in the dormitory rooms and hot water was delivered on request. The buildings were heated by wood stoves. Plentiful servings of good food was provided, family style, three times a day in the dining room.
Sperry dining room and kitchen in 1920’s, Courtesy Ray Djuff Collection
The hut was supplied by pack horses from Lake McDonald. Human waste from outhouses and gray water were tossed over the cliff until the environmental effects became intolerable (see below) by 1992. Lounging on the balconies to watch the sunset was a favorite activity.
Sperry, along with the other Glacier lodgings, suffered financially during the Great Depression. After the initial completion of the Going to the Sun Highway in 1933park visitors increasingly visited by auto and overnights at the backcountry Chalets dropped off.
Sperry closed (1943-46) during WWII. By the end of WW II all but 2 of the chalets were accessible by car, the demand for saddle trips fell off dramatically and the railroad deemed the Chalets out-moded or unsupportable. The GNR sold Sperry to the National Park Service for $1. The Park Service let the hut as a concession to Martha Russell. In 1954 the concession went to the Luding family, who operated it for many years.
What kept Sperry and the few remaining backcountry chalets going during the 1950’s and into the 1960’s was use by enthusiastic and fit cliques of park and concessionaire employees. Ray Djuff says this was a second golden age of the chalets, which became prized hiking destinations for those in the know. The back to nature movement of the 1960’s and backpacking boom of the 1970’s precipitated yet another golden age, which continues today. People love these huts. Getting reservations has long been very competitive, and will certainly be harder still in future. As in Yosemite, the interest in backcountry huts on national park lands is intense. Sperry continued to operate through August 2017 in much the same way as it did in the early days, as rustic shelter for backcountry travelers who appreciate comfort and conviviality at the end of a day of hiking in fabulous mountains.
[Coda: It is interesting to speculate what the Glacier hut system would look like today if the other backcountry Chalets at Glacier had been able to survive the incursion of the automobile into the center of the park. If, like Sperry and Granite Park, they had been able to hold on until the environmental movement and backpacking boom a generation later, Glacier still might have one of the largest and oldest hut systems in the USA. In any case, Glacier still has Sperry (assuming it will be rebuilt) and Granite Peak as reminders of a different era in National Park Service backcountry lodging options.]
Sperry Chalet, note rock work mimicking log joints, Courtesy Wiki Media
Architecture
Both of the main buildings comprising the Sperry Chalet complex were built of local stone and lumber from the area. The kitchen/dining building was built by Italian stone masons in1912. Both structures were designed by architect Kirkland Cutter of Cutter and Malgrem in Spokane. The one story 22’x80′ Kitchen and dining hall was a fairly unassuming stone structure. The 32’x90′ two story lodge or dormitory, was built in the style of a Swiss chalet. The balconies were a favorite feature of guests. A nice detail in the stonework is the use of stone to look like the corner joints of a log cabin. Following is the architectural data included in the description on the website of the National Park Lodge Architecture Society:
Sperry Chalet • Glacier NP, 1913 Classification IV
Location: Sperry Trail, Lake McDonald, Montana Theme: Swiss Chalet; National Park Rustic “Parkitecture” with multiple rectangular structures Original Architect: Cutter and Malmgren; some sources list Samuel Bartlett. Glacier Park Hotel Company Construction: Glacier Park Hotel Company (later renamed Glacier Park Company), subsidiary of Great Northern Railway. Most aspects of design and construction were controlled by Louis Hill, president of GN Railway. Structure: Two storey stone dorm building with asphalt roof, multiple porches and dormers. Interior walls cedar tongue-and-groove, floorboards are painted wood, interior and exterior railings are peeled log. One storey kitchen-dining room building, stone structure with wood shingle roof. Known Timeline:
Construction begins, 1912
Kitchen/dining room building completed, 1913
Open for guests, 1914
Closed due to war, 1918
112 total season guest count due to depression, 1932
Dormitory altered, 1940
Closed due to war, 1942-1944
Concession transferred to Luding family, 1954
Dormitory altered, 1955
Dining Room altered, including roof replacement, 1961
Deck and balconies replaced, 1978-1979
Restoration of entire complex, 1996
New restroom building added, ca. 2008
Presently offers 17 guest rooms
Environmental impact: the “million dollar toilet”
For years kitchen waste was pitched over a cliffside and became, as in many national parks, a public viewing ground for the nightly feasts of “garbage grizzlies”. In response to problems with beats attacking people in a number of national parks, culminating in several lawsuits after bears killed humans. NPS implemented strategies (e.g installing bear boxes, visitor policies, and closing of dumps in the park) to break the connection in the minds of bears between people and food. At Sperry a new strategy — packing out the kitchen waste beginning in 1954 — was implemented long before the aforementioned NPS policy changes.
Disposal of sewage was a harder problem to fix. While flush toilets were added in 1964, sewage disposal continued as before: dumped over the mountainside. By 1992 the unenlightened practice of disposing of sewage finally caught up with the National Park Service. The pollution effects of this practice were no longer possible to ignore; Montana state water quality tests were one indicator that precipitated discussions of Sperry’s future. Sperry was closed after the Sierra Club Environmental Defense Fund threatened to sue NPS for this defilement of a beautiful high mountain area. The cost of fixing the sewage problem was deemed prohibitive by NPS, which had many other pressing priorities. NPS decided to close Sperry Chalet and Granite Park Chalet, which had similar conditions.
This decision prompted a public outcry in the form of a “Save the Chalets” lobbying and fundraising effort. Public pressure resulted in action from the Montana legislators, getting Congress to direct the NPS to keep the chalets open and allocating $3.3 million to implement solution. The funds were used to effect renovations at both huts, but most of the funds went to fixing the sewage problem (the most costly component was helicopter fees associated with complex backcountry construction). Sperry and Granite Park were closed from 1992 – 1999 during construction and renovation.
The elaborate project attracted much press coverage about the “million dollar toilet”.
Alas, the expensive toilets were removed in 2005 due to non-performance — they could not achieve a sufficiently high temperature conditions to actually compost the waste. They were replaced with latrines using sealed drums, which were used to haul sewage from the huts by helicopter to a sewage treatment plant.
Today we know from experience that siting of high mountain huts is a significant challenge. Site selection for Sperry Chalet was done quickly by the railroad, and without sophisticated consideration of the long term effects of human use, in particular waste disposal. Sites like those of Granite Park and Sperry Chalets would no longer make it through the screen of an Environmental Impact Statement process. However, high mountain huts “grandfathered in” are extremely popular and can prompt extraordinary measures to keep them open in compliance with environmental stewardship principles and practices.
Lyman Beecher Sperry: professor, naturalist, sanitary scientist, trailblazer
Sperry Promotional Brochure, Courtesy Carleton College Archives
Lyman B. Sperry, the namesake of Sperry Glacier (after which Sperry Trail and Sperry Chalet were named) was a talented with many interests. He was trained as a physician, taught at a number of midwestern colleges (Oberlin, Ripon and Carleton), promoted the establishment of Glacier National Park, and was a tireless lecturer on nature-based travel and on topics concerned with public health and human sexuality.
Several aspects of Sperry’s connection with Glacier Park are related in “Lyman Sperry and the Last of the Firsts”, a chapter in Randi Minetor’s book Historic Glacier National Park: the Stories Behind One of America’s Great Treasures (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016 ). Apparently Sperry visited the Glacier area with two purposes in mind: to purchase land in the Avalanche Lake area as an investment, and to explore the wonders of the magnificent landscape. In the end it seems his appreciation of the beauty of the region — or something like that — trumped his pursuit of land acquisition.
At some point (it is not clear if this happened before or after the discovery of Sperry Glacier, but I assume it was before) Sperry was approached by an agent of the GNR and asked to explore the region. Sperry already had a reputation as a lecturer and promoter of travel and, according to Djuff and Morrison,
“Sperry was enticed to explore the Glacier Park region by a Great Northern Passenger agent who asked him to “make such observations as you shall find practicable regarding our scenic attractions.” It was the first hint of the railway’s interest in developing tourism in Glacier — more than a full decade before the area became a national park.
In June 1895 Sperry visited the Avalanche Lake area in the region that would become Glacier National Park. Homesteader Charles Howe told him about a U-shaped valley he had discovered, and about a sighting from the top of Brown Mountain of a large glacier. The thought of finding a new natural feature in a region that had been pretty well explored was exciting. They went as far as the edge of the huge basin in June and realized they needed more time and gear to do a proper exploration. Sperry returned in August 1895 (with his nephew Albert L. Sperry and Prof. L.W. Chaney, a geologist from Carleton College) and mounted an expedition into the basin and measured the elevations of the surrounding peaks, made some geological observations, and analyzed the water of Avalanche Lake, determining its composition indicated the source was glacial meltwater. There was clearly a glacier in the mountains high above them, and they looked for a way to find it. They reached the edge of the massive glacier and determined they would have to return to complete their exploration and documentation. Sperry wrote up his findings in the January 1896 issue of Appalachia, and returned in summer 1896 to climb onto the glacier and fully document it.
Like the GNR, Sperry soon became a fervent promoter of the idea of protecting Glacier as a National Park.
The next step was to provide visitor access to this remarkable discovery. Sperry went straight to J.J. Hill to propose he fund trail construction from Lake Mcdonald to Sperry Glacier. It seems Hill was intrigued but concerned because the land was not yet protected as a National park and he ran a risk of losing his financial investment. Sperry suggested the job could be done inexpensively by letting him (Sperry) hire a fifteen students at the University of Minnesota to build the trail in a summer. Hill agreed to let the students do the work (apparently without pay) and provide them transportation to and from the park on the Great Northern.
[A final note on Lyman B. Sperry the lecturer and promoter: he traveled the nation and abroad for over 30 years lecturing on “Sanitary Science”, an early tributary of what later became the disciplines of public health and human ecology. His lectures at colleges and through YMCA programs, focused particularly on societal and individual problems of sex and narcotics. Sperry was part of a movement to counter the effects of roving quacks who dispensed advice and medications that confused young people and also filled them with fears and misunderstandings about these little-understood matters. Among his lecture topics were “Male and Female”, “Human Longevity”, ‘Brain and Nerve”, “Narcotics and Narcoticism”, “Superstitions, Delusions, and Fads”, “Friendly Enemies”, and “Gumption and Grit”. By all accounts he was a powerful lecturer. With all this practice, its no wonder he was convincing in his promotion of national park status for Glacier, a topic for which he also developed strong conviction.]
Author’s note: I am deeply grateful to Ray Djuff for his research, on which I have drawn heavily, for our phone conversation, and for his providing the images used in this post. Ray is passionate in his research and generous in sharing his knowledge and resources.
Book Review: Walks of a Lifetime: Extraordinary Hikes From Around the World
by Robert and Martha Manning, Falcon Press, 2017.
Hurrah! Another elegant invitation from the Mannings to ordinary folks to try long distance walking!
Martha and Robert Manning on the Kumado Kodo Pilgrimage Walk, Japan, Courtesy Robert Manning
Walks of a Lifetime (2017), like the Manning’s first guidebook,Walking Distance(2013), alternates compelling descriptions of 30 exceptional walks around the world with brief essays on aspects of walking. With these intelligent companion volumes, Robert and Martha Manning are now firmly established as discerning and trusted guides to some of the world’s best walks. Their approach goes way beyond your typical “trail guide”.
Essays in Walks of a Lifetime delightfully amplify themes in the walk chapters, connect the reader to the larger world of long distance walking, and inspire closer attention to the world we walk. The 30 topics include trail angels, pilgrimage, urban walking, philanthropic walking, place, and the philosophy and ethics of walking. The authors celebrate the joys of advance research, discuss how to prepare and how to enjoy serendipitous “misadventures” along the way, and offer advice on answering the inevitable question, “how long will it take?”. Further, they explore the expanded field around walking by musing on ecotourism, health, walking as political statement, walking as art, and they contemplate the existential conundrum of journey vs. the destination.
Each walk portrait presents the sort of information that never goes out of date, for example natural and cultural history, land management context, weather and terrain. Descriptions are useful, satisfying, but hardly exhaustive. Instead, the reader will be stimulated toward further research, and to embrace walking as a process of life-long learning. Robert contributes knowledges honed by decades of research and teaching on national parks around the world, and he also provides hundreds of high quality photos. Martha, an artist, speaks and writes as an astute observer full of practical advice. Both husband and wife have an eye for natural beauty, topography, and unique landscape features. They also share their infectious enjoyment of people, culture and cuisine. Specifically, the walk descriptions include:
Marron Bells, Colorado, Courtesy Robert Manning
Val D’Orcia, Italy, Courtesy Robert Manning
Orientation to the landscape and its natural history, including geology, wildlife, botany, weather, soils, bodies of water, etc.;
Cultural highlights of each area, including history, archaeology, museums, culinary traditions, agriculture, architecture, language, thermal baths, and local lore;
The context of the trail/traverse: how the trail came to be, how it operates, nearby and connecting trails, the challenges and unique features of the parks and natural areas it traverses, the broader trail system and walking culture of the nation/region in which it exists; and
Photographs that visually define each experience.
And, of course, practical information and advice is included:
Getting to the trail head and back, getting around in the region;
Availability of food, water, accommodations, bathrooms, campsites, etc.;
How to hike the trail in sections, other possible modifications, and adjacent trails;
Level of difficulty, type of terrain, safety considerations, and tips about gear;
Trail protocols (important do’s and don’ts) and environmental ethics.
In Walks of a Lifetime the authors expand our concept of long distance walking beyond hiking remote woods and tramping distant fields to include sauntering through some of the world’s most populous cities (Sydney, New York, Paris and San Francisco). They also include a range of bucolic to backcountry walks in places like Arizona, Hawaii, Georgia, Utah, Colorado, Maine, N.H., China, France, New Zealand, Italy, Portugal, Japan, Scotland, England and Wales. And they take us on treks in some of the most isolated locations in the USA such as Denali in Alaska, Havasu Canyon and Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness in Arizona, and Popo Agie Wilderness in Wyoming.
The Manning’s continued emphasis on long distance walks for ordinary people is a refreshing corrective to the current craze for “through hiking” on such trails as the Pacific Crest and Appalachian Trail. Such hikes, requiring months of time and almost superhuman effort, are not for ordinary people. This book is a tonic for the rest of us. In fact, in Walks of a Lifetime, the Mannings offer even gentler and more accessible walks than in their previous guide. They include four urban saunters, and also describe a higher proportion of domestic (U.S.) walks (seventeen) than in the 2013 volume (twelve). As to level of difficulty, this latest guide includes seven walks of low challenge (compared with two in the previous book) and eight that are categorized as high challenge (compared with twelve in the previous book).
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, an Urban Walk, Courtesy Robert Manning
The latest volume is published by Falcon Press, a specialist in trail guides. The earlier guide, published by Oregon State University Press includes an index, further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter, a bibliography, and a sprinkling of sparkling quotations throughout. The Falcon Press publication omits these extras. I missed these.
One quibble: the maps in Walks of a Lifetime are extremely rudimentary. While providing the highly detailed topo maps necessary for walking the walk is clearly not within the scope of this guide, better maps would definitely aid in amplifying the author’s text and in supporting the walker’s planning. Falcon Press is capable of doing better by its authors and readers.
Readers new to long distance walking will find themselves in good hands as they select a walk and plan for their first trip. Experienced walkers will enjoy perusing the options shared by the well-travelled and insightful authors. Written with intelligence, grace and gentle humor, the Manning’s two guides are perfect gifts for friends and family. Each volume effectively encourages new readers to get off the chair, take a long walk, and savor the wonders of nature and culture at a slow pace. Both guides are also highly recommended for libraries serving communities with interest in outdoor recreation.
With its highly-organized system of 1,000 backcountry huts New Zealand (NZ) — about the same size (area and population) as Oregon — is the hut capital of the world. By comparison, the USA has about 110 huts operating within 17 different hut-to-hut systems; Switzerland and Norway each have about 500 huts. Every nation’s approach to outdoor recreation — including how its citizens organize overnight stays in the wild — is based on local causes and conditions such as geography, size of the country, climate, terrain, history, economics, politics, and cultural values. Shelter from the Storm is a richly illustrated, well-researched history of the causes and conditions that created NZ’s unique hut culture, and a beautiful tribute to the huts themselves.
Embedded below is the 14 page, beautifully illustrated “Introduction”, by Shaun Barnett, to the remarkable book Shelter from the Storm. In it he provides an overview of the benefits, history, and architecture of New Zealand huts. His “Introduction” gives the reader a feel for the book as a whole. For more on this book, see my two part book review of Shelter from the Storm click here for: part 1 and part 2. Continue reading →
For part one of this review click here. Following are some fascinating themes and stories that are skillfully elaborated in Shelter from the Storm, about New Zealand Backcountry Huts.
This book tells the story of how a geographically remote island nation came to create a robust international outdoor culture, and how a disparate collection of huts built for other purposes – I like the phrase infrastructure lying in wait — came to form the backbone of the world’s largest hut system. Continue reading →
On Trails: an exploration by Robert Moor, Simon and Schuster, 2016
Book Review by Sam Demas
Robert Moor is intellectually intrepid in his exploration — as a writer and a walker – of the genesis, meaning and wonder of trails. Trails of all kinds. He writes in the spirit of intellectual adventure represented by authors like Henry Thoreau, John Muir, Robert Macfarlane, Annie Dillard, Jared Diamond, and Bruce Chatwin. Through fluid writing, artful character sketches, long walks, and deep research, he opens our eyes to the fact that trails are everywhere one goes in the world, and that they all have stories to tell and wisdom to impart. As Moor says, his book is a trail whose destination is a quest for the wisdom of trails. I’ve read (or listened to) this book several times in the past year and am finally sharing my enthusiasm with the readers of hut2hut.info. Continue reading →
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Below is a reprint of the “Introduction” to the book: 
