Alpine Club of Canada's Castle Mountain Hut Gets New Life
Rocky Mountain Outlook
Leah Pelletier
BANFF — For close to 60 years, generations of climbers have sought a good night's sleep and refuge from the elements inside the walls of the Alpine Club of Canada’s (ACC) Castle Mountain Hut.
Now, the tiny cabin perched high on the Goat Plateau of Banff’s Castle Mountain, has been given new life.
“It had been there since 1967 and it was put up there at the time when there were a lot fewer climbers … and it was a very useful functional structure for the day,” said Keith Haberl, ACC director of marketing and communications.
“A couple of climbers could stay overnight and maybe it could sleep four and six in a pinch, but it was cramped, and it was getting old.”
One of the ACC’s 26 huts, the newly named Castle Mountain (Currie) Cabin was replaced at the end of August, making it a more permanent structure on the mountain.
“It had served its purpose, so it was time. It was that hut's time. … It was a smaller hut that was never supposed to last 60 years, but it did, and it was a great hut,” said Haberl.
Intended as a climbers-only hut, the cabin sits between numerous traditional and bolted multipitch routes on Castle, allowing climbers to overnight on the plateau before attempting routes on the upper walls of one of the Bow Valley’s landmark peaks.
“The area is seeing a lot more climbers than it used to, and this is an effort to service that community better,” said Haberl.
The new, modern design now houses eight climbers comfortably and features a kitchen and dining area, LED lighting and outlets powered by solar panels instead of propane.
“It’s much more airy, it’s bigger, taller and it’s insulated so it’ll be a little warmer in the evenings and overall … it’s a better experience. It’s a much more modern structure,” said Haberl.
“The site of the hut is slightly different. It’s 20 feet away, or … five or 10 meters away [from the original site], and the site of the old hut is now the site of the outhouse.”
A covered front porch is another new feature of the build.
“The idea there is that climbers who are there can wait out a storm, even if they haven’t booked the hut as an overnight,” Haberl said.
Several years in the making, construction on the cabin began in the summer of 2024 with the foundation completed that fall.
Haberl noted that permitting and environmental studies played a part in the timeline of the project, and delays from snowfall on the plateau and kidding season — which restricts flying over the area to protect mountain goats — meant finishing touches and interior work was completed this summer with the hut reopening to climbers at the end of August.
“[Parks Canada] has certain regulations around when you can and can't fly all of the equipment and materials and everything had to be flown in there by helicopter and there are mountain goats on Goat plateau and they have a kidding season where their babies are born and we can't fly around that time,” said Haberl.
“The process with Parks is always extensive. It's always professional. We work well with them [and] they work well with us, but it does take a long time.”
Honoring past president of the ACC from 2014 to 2016, Gord Currie, and recognizing his family's significant donation to the Castle Mountain project, the hut was renamed the Castle Mountain (Currie) Cabin.
A Piece of Hut History
Taking over operation of the hut from Banff National Park in 1987, little was known about the cabin’s origins aside from the fact that it was built by a class from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) as a school project.
That changed when the ACC hut maintenance team began taking apart the old structure and a piece of paper slipped out from the remains of the old cabin’s walls.
“As we moved one section of wall into the trailer, all of a sudden, I saw a piece of lined foolscap paper sliding out and I thought, ‘Well, that's kind of odd,’” said Tom Fransham, ACC capital projects manager, recalling when he found the note.
“That's when I grabbed it and opened it up and … I said, ‘Wow, look at this, guys. There's a note from the original builders.’”
On a still intact piece of 60-year-old paper, the names of about 19 builders were scribbled down — all part of a SAIT class from 1963-64.
“I was amazed that the note had stayed in the wall while it was being flown down on the helicopter. We could have lost it in the net or even just had it been stuck in a different location it could have ended up being disposed of with that wall section, so it was pure luck and I'm super, super stoked that we were able to find that,” Fransham said.
Posting about the note online, Haberl said the ACC is asking their community to thank the builders for their work if anyone recognizes a name on the list.
“We’ve posted [it] on our blog and we said, ‘Well, if you know these people, tell them that we love their work,’” said Haberl.
“Most everybody had forgotten or never knew who had built this hut, so it's sort of a bit of a fun part of the story.”
“We’re talking with some people at SAIT where this crew [was] a graduating class … to maybe connect with either someone on that list or one of their descendants,” Fransham added.
Long-Term Visions
Now complete, Haberl says the Castle Mountain Hut was one of many ACC projects in the works.
“We look at all of our huts — with 26 and 27 after Robson [Pass Hut] is open — and we look at them
and plan them out. What's the lifespan of this thing? Should we replace the roof or … how much money should we put into one hut or another?” said Haberl.
“…There's a lot of work that we do on all of them, and we've got a longer-term vision for many of them.”
With renovations of the Wates-Gibson Hut and Asulkan Cabin in Rogers Pass set for the fall, the possibility of replacing the Scott Duncan Hut on the Wapta Icefield is another discussion point for the ACC and Parks Canada, according to Haberl.
“The issue there is it's one hut of four on a traverse and the other huts sleep 18, 30, 18 and Scott Duncan Hut sleeps 12, so it creates a bottleneck [for] people on the south end of the Wapta, so that’s a possibility and we’re in discussion with Parks about that.”
Working with Parks Canada over the past decade, the ACC has also transformed old warden cabins into backcountry huts. Haberl noted that acquiring and restoring more of these old cabins is another long-term project in the works.
“The Cameron Lake Cabin in Waterton and the Jacques Lake Cabin in Jasper are two examples of warden cabins that we've converted into backcountry huts,” said Haberl.
“Those are an excellent model where, you know, Parks doesn't use the cabins anymore, and we put money into them and then operate them as a backcountry hut. Everybody loves it, nobody wants to see the cabins burn down and it gives the public a chance to stay in these beautiful areas.”