Bow Hut

Bow Hut

Built 1968

The Bow Hut is fantastically scenic, perfectly situated and is an excellent base for exploring further onto the Wapta Icefields in winter or summer. It is the easiest and most natural route onto the Wapta and gives access to the Peyto Hut to the north, and the Balfour and Scott Duncan huts to the south.

Hut Facilities

Bow Hut Features

Open All Year

Features

Heart of the Wapta

The peaks of the Wapta are an attraction for summer mountaineering as well and many climbers have learned or honed their glacier travel and crevasse rescue skills within sight of the hut. The hut itself is bright, spacious and fantastically scenic. It is the largest, best equipped and most accessible of the four huts on the Wapta.

Trail Access

Take the road past the Num-Ti-Jah Lodge and follow the trail that leads around the north shore of the lake. After you cross the main creek that feeds into the lake, follow the well-marked trail that starts to climb the slope along the right side of the canyon. Follow the trail up the steps and take the first possible left turn, over a boulder-bridge to get across to the east side of the river. Continue on the trail above the east side of the canyon until it drops back down to the streambed again, and stay along the left side of the river on the way up. Eventually the trail will begin to angle up through the trees on the left side of the canyon, and will open up into a large moraine-basin filled with rubble. From here you can choose from many of the cairn-marked trails to take you across the basin towards the large headwall, which the hut sits right above. Cross the creek at the last minute, and follow any of the good trails up the final steep slopes to the right for a few hundred metres to reach the hut.

Rates

Member Rates

  • Standard $50

Non Member Rates

  • Standard $60

Features

The heart of the Wapta

In winter, a trip to the Bow Hut is a common first ski-mountaineering experience, being a reasonable days ski from the highway and providing access to fantastic powder skiing and great ski-mountaineering objectives like Mt. Olive and St. Nicholas Peak.

Trail Access

From the west end of the parking lot ski down to the edge of the lake. Since the lake is frozen in the wintertime the route is more straightforward by crossing over the snow-covered ice directly to the other side (be sure that the lake is completely frozen). On the other side, ski along the streambed for about half a kilometre until the canyon up ahead becomes too difficult to pass through. Angle up into the trees to the left where the terrain is more easygoing, and follow the trail through the trees parallel to the canyon. The trees will open up beneath a large avalanche slope, move across it quickly and climb a short hill on the right that leads up around the corner and back into the main drainage again. Continue along the creek into the narrow canyon with steep walls above. These walls are covered in snow and present some avalanche hazard, be sure not to linger in this area as it can be a terrain trap if anything were to slide. Be cautious through here in the late season as the ice over the creek may begin to melt in the springtime. The terrain through the canyon will begin to get quite difficult after about one km and at this point climb up onto the east bank on your left.

The trail gradually ascends the slope, continuing at an angle through the forest until opening up into a large snow basin. From here you can spot the hut high up on a bench across the cirque to the right. Choose the safest route to cross the avalanche slopes through here, making your way around the contour of the cirque while gradually gaining elevation to reach to hut around on the right side. The final slopes beneath the hut are steep and usually require a number of switchbacks to climb up out of the cirque and onto the bench, on which the hut is located just another 100 metres further from the top.

Rates

Member Rates

  • Standard $50

Non Member Rates

  • Standard $60

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Hut History

The original Bow Hut project was initiated by Peter Fuhrmann, funded by Peter and Catharine Whyte and was constructed in 1968 by members of various groups including the Calgary Ski Club and the ACC. The hut was built near Bow Glacier to facilitate ski tourers and mountaineers entering the Wapta via Bow Lake, the easiest and most natural route to the icefields. Fiberglass igloos had been established at both the Peyto Glacier and Balfour Pass in the years prior, and with the building of a deluxe 14-person facility at a location between the two, the vision of a system of huts on the Wapta/Waputik Icefields was taking shape. None of those responsible for the project, however, could have predicted the amount of use and the level of abuse that the original Bow Hut would endure.

The hut was poorly treated from the beginning, and saw very little regular maintenance or upkeep. By the 1980s the place was in total disrepair. It was used as a flop house, the snow within several hundred feet of the hut had been contaminated by the outhouses and by indiscriminate waste disposal, and some estimates put the number of users per year at 7,000 (19 people per night at a facility which was built to sleep 14!). The hut which was described upon its completion as the “the Ritz” had metamorphosed into the “Bow Ghetto”.

By the mid-1980s it was evident that the facility required radical change. In 1989, under the direction of the ACC’s Huts Committee Chairman Mike Mortimer, that radical change took place. The original hut had been built on a site which was non-porous and therefore had no drainage – a problem that led to the contaminated water and snow. Plans were made for a new hut in a more environmentally sensitive location and fund-raising began. The new Bow Hut was constructed for $98,000, raised primarily through the Calgary and Edmonton sections of the Club.

Design concerns in the new hut included proper waste disposal, spacious and bright common areas and sleeping rooms which were both increased in size from the original hut and separated from the common areas to facilitate use by may groups at one time. The palatial new Bow Hut was opened in the fall of 1989 to rave reviews and is presently operated by the ACC.

The hut today is a far cry from the original Balfour and Peyto fiberglass igloos, which a Banff Warden predicted in the late ’60s “will only serve the few hardy ski mountaineers who can accept the hardships of carrying and skiing with heavy loads and are willing to put up with discomfort during the night in bad weather”. It’s an even further cry from the abused state of the original Bow Hut and now serves as a stopover for many summer and winter trips.

Rab Canada sponsors the ACC hut network.
We thank them for their support.

Additional ski week availability on a per bed basis at Bill Putnam (Fairy Meadow) and Kokanee Glacier Cabin just released for the 24/25 season!

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