Mover thrilled to be able to save Enchanted Valley Chalet

The 84-year-old Enchanted Valley Chalet might be one big rainstorm from plummeting into the Quinalt River.

Thanks to Monroe House Moving, the historic Olympic National Park lodge, located 13 miles from the nearest road, is moving to safer ground this week.

Jeff Monroe told KIRO Radio he has six house movers, four cooks and packers, and five park staff members working on the project that gets underway Monday. Besides 15 humans, Monroe has a team of mules hauling in equipment.

Anything too heavy to hike in will be flown in by helicopter next weekend, weather permitting.

After installing temporary interior walls to transfer the second floor weight to the ground floor, and then sliding steal underneath the 80-ton structure, teams will hoist it up and set the chalet on soap pads.

“We’re going to slide it on Ivory bar soap with four rails and we’re going to push it with cylinders 100 feet, 14 inches at a time,” Monroe said.

So how much soap is that?

“Not as much as you think … probably 24 bars,” he said.

The five-horse power Honda hydraulic pump might seem small-potatoes for such a heavy load, but Monroe said it’ll do it. It might be a little slow, but it can handle the weight.

Monroe said it’s about a two-day process because they have to keep flipping their rails.

“You have to bring the rail ahead and bolt it to the next one, set your track level, push it again, just keep doing that over and over again until you get there.”

Once the chalet is in position 100 feet from the river’s edge, Monroe said it’ll stay on the rails until as much as two years worth of studies are done to determine it’s fate.

If left alone, Monroe believes the roof would fall off and the chalet would block the river or float downstream and take out the foot bridge.

“It’s so well built … it would not fall apart like you think. If it was going to fall apart, it would have already done that. It’s unbelievable how they put that together in 1930,” he said.

The Olympic National Park awarded Monroe’s company a $124,000 contract to make the move, but he said he originally volunteered his services. He said there were complications due to liability, so the crew is hired and Monroe is volunteering his time.

So why take on so much work?

“On April 15, I had 11 phone calls on the chalet. Two of those people were crying – they were so upset it was going into the river. It was at that point that I was going to take action and save this thing.”

Monroe hiked the 13 miles out to the lodge to check out the job and knew it was something he could do.

“If the weather holds out, we’ll be OK.”

The Olympic National Park says camping will be closed off for the duration of the project and hiking will be by escort-only from the steele bridge to one mile upriver from the chalet.

The chalet was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in June 2007.

KIRO Radio’s Frank Shiers contributed to this report.