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The Mountaineers' Snoqualmie Lodge. A fire on the morning of Friday May 12th, 2006 destroyed the historic structure and nearby vehicle(s).
© Robert M. Youngs
FEDERATION OF WESTERN OUTDOOR CLUBS
By John Iwasaki
P-I Reporter
Fire destroyed the historic Mountaineers Lodge at Snoqualmie Pass early Friday, claiming a rustic structure that had served as a base camp, training center and dance hall for more than a half-century.
"It really is a sad and tragic loss," said Steve Costie, executive director of the Mountaineers Club, an outdoor recreation organization based in Seattle. "The only bright spot is that no one was in the lodge or hurt. What was lost was bunk beds, some outdoor gear and the kitchen.
"But it means a lot to us emotionally. It's been the focal point of the club for five decades."
The three-story lodge built in 1948 was uninsured. It had an assessed value of about $200,000, but the memories it evoked are "priceless," Costie said.
The fire was initially reported at 5:53 a.m. Friday to the Washington State Patrol by people driving on nearby Interstate 90. Firefighters stretched hoses over 300 yards from the highway up a steep, snow-covered driveway to the lodge.
Kittitas County fire investigators will continue searching today for the fire's cause.
The lodge was in its spring "dormant time," Costie said, and no one from the Mountaineers Club had been there since May 2. He said investigators found footprints in the melting snow leading to and from the lodge.
The club's original lodge at Lodge Lake burned down in 1944. The main construction on the newer lodge took place in the summer of 1948 on an 80-acre site and was "a grand exercise in volunteerism," according to "The Mountaineers: A History," a book written by club member and former Seattle P-I copy editor Jim Kjeldsen.
Much of the lumber for the lodge was milled from trees logged on the site. The man who constructed the chimney footing was the only person hired for the project; the rest of the workers were "any man or woman who knew how to use a hammer or other tool," Kjeldsen wrote.
The largest work party involved 160 people -- one-tenth of the club -- to put on the roof.
The 4,000-square-foot lodge was placed on the Washington Heritage Register in June 2005.
The lodge was popular for dances shortly after it opened, but served mostly as a base camp for skiing and other winter sports since then, particularly in the 1950s through the 1970s.
"In the 1980s and 1990s it dwindled," Costie said, but lodge use then grew as it became a popular site for Scout, youth, church and non-profit group activities.
In early January, about 600 people visited the lodge for Winter Trails Day, part of a national program organized by the American Hiking Society.
The lodge was maintained solely by volunteers. Two years ago, members replaced the roof and other maintenance was planned.
"We were always working on it," Costie said. "There was talk about what we wanted to do with the deck overlooking the southeast."
Costie said the lodge, and whether to rebuild it, will be the main agenda item for the Mountaineers Club's June board meeting.
"We're not going to act in haste on this," he said. "We'll remember our loss and honor it."
As to whether the club would have difficulties rebuilding at the forest site with today's tougher environmental standards, Costie said, "I'm sure we could do something, but I do not want to hazard a guess on it."
P-I reporter John Iwasaki can be reached at 206-448-8096 or johniwasaki@seattlepi.com.
---------------
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Seattle Times Newspaper
Historic Mountaineer Lodge at Snoqualmie Pass burns to the ground
By Sara Jean Green
Seattle Times staff reporter
SNOQUALMIE PASS, Kittitas County — Late-season snow mixed with soot and smoke swirled around Lynn Hyde Friday as she and other longtime members of The Mountaineers surveyed the charred remains of the club's historic Snoqualmie Lodge, which was to be opened to the public for the first time this summer.
An early-morning blaze destroyed both the lodge and the club's plans to offer educational programs about the area's diverse ecosystems, from its indigenous plants to its Alpine wetlands and mountain forests. A cause for the fire has not been determined.
Hyde's children, like generations before them, learned to ski on the 77-acre site that was purchased by The Mountaineers after another fire destroyed the club's first lodge at the pass in 1944.
The replacement lodge, built by an all-volunteer crew in 1948 off Interstate 90's Exit 53, closed for the ski season in mid-March. But it was to reopen in June so hikers and mountain climbers could book the lodge's spacious but rustic sleeping quarters and commercial-sized kitchen.
The lodge is one of four in the Cascade Mountains owned by The Mountaineers, the quintessential Seattle club for mountain climbers, hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts.
The club is now celebrating its centennial.
"It's the memories, but it's also the dreams we had for it as an environmental-education center for the community," said Hyde, a Mountaineers volunteer who worked to have the lodge added to the Washington State Heritage Register of Historic Places last year.
Hyde said The Mountaineers envisioned the lodge as "a gateway to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area," and had been in discussions with the Pacific Crest Trail Association to reroute the trail to the lodge site "so it could be a drop station and a way station for hikers."
Driver reported fire
A man driving nearby called 911 at 5:32 a.m. Friday to report seeing flames through the trees, said Matt Cowan, fire chief of Snoqualmie Pass Fire and Rescue. It took firefighters 40 minutes to lay 2,500 feet of hose-line up a snow-covered trail to reach the remote site, he said.
"It was pretty much to the ground when we got up here and started putting water on it," Snoqualmie Pass Fire and Rescue Lt. Judy Heyer said.
Kittitas County Sheriff's deputies were to remain at the site overnight Friday until the wreckage cooled enough for fire investigators to begin the process of determining what caused the blaze.
"It's so gut-wrenching," said Fran Troje, who had planned to celebrate her 75th birthday with a work party at the lodge in July. "It's not just the history, it's the future."
Troje, like her fellow club members who gathered at the fire site, said she hopes the lodge will be rebuilt.
"Throw money at us, please," she said. "Maybe we can organize a big work crew to come clean up this mess."
Tucked between two summits near The Summit at Snoqualmie ski area, the Snoqualmie Lodge was particularly popular in the years after World War II, when downhill skiing began to take off.
In the 1950s, dances were held in the lodge's open communal area, and it was later used for first-aid training, outdoor-skills classes and snowshoe lessons.
Tents were pitched in summer and snow caves were built in winter, expanded sleeping space for those who couldn't fit inside the lodge's bedrooms and two dorm-style sleeping rooms.
"It's been our training center for five decades and now it's been completely wiped away," Steve Costie, The Mountaineers' executive director, said from Seattle. "It's left a real hole for me. An icon is gone."
The Mountaineers did not have fire insurance because the lodge was too remote, Costie said.
He said the Mountaineers' board members, who are scheduled to meet in June, will decide the lodge's future.
Inspections passed
Mary Lynch, the lodge's volunteer manager, was the last club member to visit the lodge May 2.
"It was a rustic lodge" but had just passed inspections by the health and fire departments, she said.
A fire-alarm system had recently been installed and a club-owned snow tractor that was destroyed in the fire had been overhauled last year, Lynch said.
"So many people have grown up here with so many memories," she said. "When the snow is gone, there are Alpine wetlands with Indian paintbrush, marsh marigolds and trilliums. All year round, it's a neat place to come."
Seattle Times reporter Craig Welch contributed to this report.
Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com. Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Investigators looking into fire at historic lodge
Investigators looking into fire at historic lodge
By John Iwasaki
P-I Reporter
Fire destroyed the historic Mountaineers Lodge at Snoqualmie Pass early Friday, claiming a rustic structure that had served as a base camp, training center and dance hall for more than a half-century.
"It really is a sad and tragic loss," said Steve Costie, executive director of the Mountaineers Club, an outdoor recreation organization based in Seattle. "The only bright spot is that no one was in the lodge or hurt. What was lost was bunk beds, some outdoor gear and the kitchen.
"But it means a lot to us emotionally. It's been the focal point of the club for five decades."
The three-story lodge built in 1948 was uninsured. It had an assessed value of about $200,000, but the memories it evoked are "priceless," Costie said.
The fire was initially reported at 5:53 a.m. Friday to the Washington State Patrol by people driving on nearby Interstate 90. Firefighters stretched hoses over 300 yards from the highway up a steep, snow-covered driveway to the lodge.
Kittitas County fire investigators will continue searching today for the fire's cause.
The lodge was in its spring "dormant time," Costie said, and no one from the Mountaineers Club had been there since May 2. He said investigators found footprints in the melting snow leading to and from the lodge.
The club's original lodge at Lodge Lake burned down in 1944. The main construction on the newer lodge took place in the summer of 1948 on an 80-acre site and was "a grand exercise in volunteerism," according to "The Mountaineers: A History," a book written by club member and former Seattle P-I copy editor Jim Kjeldsen.
Much of the lumber for the lodge was milled from trees logged on the site. The man who constructed the chimney footing was the only person hired for the project; the rest of the workers were "any man or woman who knew how to use a hammer or other tool," Kjeldsen wrote.
The largest work party involved 160 people -- one-tenth of the club -- to put on the roof.
The 4,000-square-foot lodge was placed on the Washington Heritage Register in June 2005.
The lodge was popular for dances shortly after it opened, but served mostly as a base camp for skiing and other winter sports since then, particularly in the 1950s through the 1970s.
"In the 1980s and 1990s it dwindled," Costie said, but lodge use then grew as it became a popular site for Scout, youth, church and non-profit group activities.
In early January, about 600 people visited the lodge for Winter Trails Day, part of a national program organized by the American Hiking Society.
The lodge was maintained solely by volunteers. Two years ago, members replaced the roof and other maintenance was planned.
"We were always working on it," Costie said. "There was talk about what we wanted to do with the deck overlooking the southeast."
Costie said the lodge, and whether to rebuild it, will be the main agenda item for the Mountaineers Club's June board meeting.
"We're not going to act in haste on this," he said. "We'll remember our loss and honor it."
As to whether the club would have difficulties rebuilding at the forest site with today's tougher environmental standards, Costie said, "I'm sure we could do something, but I do not want to hazard a guess on it."
P-I reporter John Iwasaki can be reached at 206-448-8096 or johniwasaki@seattlepi.com.
---------------
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Seattle Times Newspaper
Historic Mountaineer Lodge at Snoqualmie Pass burns to the ground
By Sara Jean Green
Seattle Times staff reporter
SNOQUALMIE PASS, Kittitas County — Late-season snow mixed with soot and smoke swirled around Lynn Hyde Friday as she and other longtime members of The Mountaineers surveyed the charred remains of the club's historic Snoqualmie Lodge, which was to be opened to the public for the first time this summer.
An early-morning blaze destroyed both the lodge and the club's plans to offer educational programs about the area's diverse ecosystems, from its indigenous plants to its Alpine wetlands and mountain forests. A cause for the fire has not been determined.
Hyde's children, like generations before them, learned to ski on the 77-acre site that was purchased by The Mountaineers after another fire destroyed the club's first lodge at the pass in 1944.
The replacement lodge, built by an all-volunteer crew in 1948 off Interstate 90's Exit 53, closed for the ski season in mid-March. But it was to reopen in June so hikers and mountain climbers could book the lodge's spacious but rustic sleeping quarters and commercial-sized kitchen.
The lodge is one of four in the Cascade Mountains owned by The Mountaineers, the quintessential Seattle club for mountain climbers, hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts.
The club is now celebrating its centennial.
"It's the memories, but it's also the dreams we had for it as an environmental-education center for the community," said Hyde, a Mountaineers volunteer who worked to have the lodge added to the Washington State Heritage Register of Historic Places last year.
Hyde said The Mountaineers envisioned the lodge as "a gateway to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area," and had been in discussions with the Pacific Crest Trail Association to reroute the trail to the lodge site "so it could be a drop station and a way station for hikers."
Driver reported fire
A man driving nearby called 911 at 5:32 a.m. Friday to report seeing flames through the trees, said Matt Cowan, fire chief of Snoqualmie Pass Fire and Rescue. It took firefighters 40 minutes to lay 2,500 feet of hose-line up a snow-covered trail to reach the remote site, he said.
"It was pretty much to the ground when we got up here and started putting water on it," Snoqualmie Pass Fire and Rescue Lt. Judy Heyer said.
Kittitas County Sheriff's deputies were to remain at the site overnight Friday until the wreckage cooled enough for fire investigators to begin the process of determining what caused the blaze.
"It's so gut-wrenching," said Fran Troje, who had planned to celebrate her 75th birthday with a work party at the lodge in July. "It's not just the history, it's the future."
Troje, like her fellow club members who gathered at the fire site, said she hopes the lodge will be rebuilt.
"Throw money at us, please," she said. "Maybe we can organize a big work crew to come clean up this mess."
Tucked between two summits near The Summit at Snoqualmie ski area, the Snoqualmie Lodge was particularly popular in the years after World War II, when downhill skiing began to take off.
In the 1950s, dances were held in the lodge's open communal area, and it was later used for first-aid training, outdoor-skills classes and snowshoe lessons.
Tents were pitched in summer and snow caves were built in winter, expanded sleeping space for those who couldn't fit inside the lodge's bedrooms and two dorm-style sleeping rooms.
"It's been our training center for five decades and now it's been completely wiped away," Steve Costie, The Mountaineers' executive director, said from Seattle. "It's left a real hole for me. An icon is gone."
The Mountaineers did not have fire insurance because the lodge was too remote, Costie said.
He said the Mountaineers' board members, who are scheduled to meet in June, will decide the lodge's future.
Inspections passed
Mary Lynch, the lodge's volunteer manager, was the last club member to visit the lodge May 2.
"It was a rustic lodge" but had just passed inspections by the health and fire departments, she said.
A fire-alarm system had recently been installed and a club-owned snow tractor that was destroyed in the fire had been overhauled last year, Lynch said.
"So many people have grown up here with so many memories," she said. "When the snow is gone, there are Alpine wetlands with Indian paintbrush, marsh marigolds and trilliums. All year round, it's a neat place to come."
Seattle Times reporter Craig Welch contributed to this report.
Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com. Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company