The following article was submitted by Paul Kubik in reaction to a recent discussion on the Spearhead huts and BCMC’s support of the Spearhead Huts project. The dialogue with the club members will continue at the next social on May 8th, 2012. We are interested in hearing your opinion, so please do attend or post a comment on this blog.
Here’s what Paul had to say:
“I was conservation chair and wrote the submission for the club to the 1990 Garibaldi Management Plan.
The question of hut building in the Spearhead was not really on the table for discussion at the time. Rather the discussion was deferred with a note in the management plan to that effect. What was discussed peripherally though was the bid by Blackcomb Mountain to remove a chunk of park land in order to “rationalize” their ski area boundary. At that time, there was a fair bit of goodwill in the mountaineering community towards the mountain and the bid was not strongly opposed by the club. In retrospect, perhaps it should have been.
The management plan that was adopted in 1990 should have been assurance that traditional recreational use and conservation of the Spearhead range would continue in perpetuity. In fact, there has been a steady erosion of protection and use. Additional to the Blackcomb exclusion, there was an expansion by Whistler into the Musical Bumps, the relocation of Singing Pass trailhead to W-B parking lot and the conversion of the access road to a playground for guided ATVs, harassment of hikers heading up Singing Pass on bikes to the park boundary and ongoing harassment when using traditional access routes such as the mining road to the base of Green Chair. The expansion of Whistler to the Musical Bumps turned the Singing Pass trail into a high-speed descent route for downhill skiers, the glazing of the trail into an icy sidehill and the conversion of Russet Lake hut into a party place.
Actually, partying at Russet Lake is nothing new. The likeable owner of the original Coast Mountain Sports, Randy Hooper, cultivated the persona of a bearded hippy on telemark skis. He ran the original store on 4th Avenue in the 1980s before he sold it to the current owners. There weren’t any plastics boots for telemarking. It was all leather and laces meant for long distances rather than mechanized-assisted technical descents that are popular today. Randy, however, was not averse to flying into Russet Lake for a weekend of partying and shredding. And make no mistake about it, the proposed huts are going to cater to those accustomed to mechanized access, by the lifts in this case.
So that’s where it stands today. If someone had said in 1990 that twenty-two years later that’s what the management plan would result in I would have said it would be the most pessimistic of outcomes.
What we have on the table today is three huts being proposed for 35 to 40 people. Estimated cost per hut is $300,000, give or take $100K. So, we’re looking in the neighbourhood of $1 million. For $1 million, we don’t even get another trail or improved access. That is to be funded from hut revenue. Time will tell. The huts are high elevation huts intended to be accessed from the top of Whistler and Blackcomb lift systems. The huts have a large number of backers in the business community in Squamish and Whistler hoping for spin-off benefits. There is widespread support in the slackcountry skier community. But that really puzzles me. I’m constantly hearing from hut supporters that there’s so many people in the Spearhead already. Why would anyone want to increase the numbers by another 120? But there you have it.
The number of three huts arises apparently because four huts were wanted in order to make travel between huts easy for the average. One hut was dropped for some reason. Anyway, the number three is just sitting out there in order to make it easy for the average person. Then why not just one hut with the option to fly in? There’s already a precedent for it in Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park.
Why are the only huts proposed high elevation huts? Would it not also be an option to have one large backcountry hut below tree line at the head of Fitzsimmons Creek with a low elevation access trail? You could also ski from a high point down to the hut at the end of a day and then climb back up in the morning when you’re refreshed?
There is any number of alternatives and one of them is do absolutely nothing. However, we are visualizing the future so everything should be on the table. Yet, there is only one vision coming out of the proposal. Three large huts and three locations have been determined. Who is making the decision? Already it seems a fait d’accomplis? Shouldn’t we be first examining alternatives rather than voting on a completed proposal? Because I don’t get the impression we’re really being consulted. Our club’s name is being used to indicate approval and widespread support.
We’re very short on details. Costs per hut are $300,000 plus or minus $100,000. That is a wide range but doesn’t give me confidence. There are many missing details. How much does it cost to maintain the hut per year. How much per night does it cost? What is the expected occupancy? How much revenue per year will be available to build trails? What trail and access improvements are planned? A single bridge and access road across Fitzsimmons Creek might cost as much as a hut or more and that’s without any trail being built. How much is our discount? Will there be beer gardens and cappuccino bars, as I’ve heard rumors of?
Is there a formal and binding legal agreement on how the huts will be managed, revenues disbursed? This is ultimately extremely important. What’s to stop a well intentioned understanding from being derailed by market forces and land managers as we have seen the 1990 management plan go off the rails? What will it look like in twenty years? There’s a lot of people looking one or two years into the future when really they should be looking 20 or 30 years ahead. What if hut fees climb from say $20/night to $100 or $200 per night? And why wouldn’t they? That money could be used to pay for all sorts of things. Anything is possible but at the expense of the park!
What’s your vision for the Spearhead? In twenty or thirty years it could feel like an extension of Whistler Blackcomb. Will there be any wildness left? It’s your vision, your time.”
