Alpine Guard Station Update

After a long summer of hard work, it looks like the Alpine Guard station is ready for business! I just heard from Elizabeth that almost all of the work has been completed. That's excellent news because we were very concerned that it wouldn't get done before the snow started falling.

Since I've been blogging on a weekly basis all summer, you pretty much know what we did and how we did it on each of the three buildings. So for this blog I'm just going to show you some amazing before and after pictures. Some things will look exactly the same- but rest assured there was a lot of hard work to keep it that way! That's one frustration with preservation, sometimes the better your work is, the more it looks like nothing was done! You'll also see some significant changes too. But first lets start with this incredible picture from many years ago...


Seeing that photo made me quite inspired to work on these buildings. If we thought it was hard to get all those supplies up there via a work truck and trailer, I can't imagine how difficult it was via horse! Here's a picture of what this same building looked like when we arrived in June:


Looks like 100 years has taken it's toll on it. Now here's a picture of how it looks today:


Here's a before and after of the interior of this cabin:



Now here's a before and after of the main cabin. Doesn't the porch look awesome! (The porch was original to the building though it failed after only 2 or 3 years. We decided to add it back in a more structurally sound manner).




I think everything looks great, and I'm really proud of our team for getting so much accomplished. We put in some long hard days out there, but it was so worth it! Now if you want to spend a great vacation in the middle of pristine mountain landscapes, fantastic fly fishing and wonderful restored forest service cabins- you can rent this out!

I hope to get more opportunities like this in the future. This is why I decided to get into this field! Thanks to Elizabeth for sending me all the great photos. And here's a special one to leave you with...it really was amazing up there!