Our Story
Where adventure meets elegance in the heart of the Canadian Rockies
Back in 1987, Margaret Quinthor stood at the base of Bow Valley with nothing but a backpack and a vision that most folks called crazy.
She'd been guiding climbers through these mountains for nearly a decade, watching them struggle to find a place that got it - you know, that perfect balance between a proper hot shower after a day on the trails and the kind of authenticity that doesn't feel like some corporate retreat.
Margaret took out loans she probably shouldn't have, convinced her brother Thomas to leave his accounting job in Calgary, and they bought this old hunting lodge that hadn't seen guests since the '60s. The place was a mess - leaky roof, questionable plumbing, and enough wood rot to make any inspector nervous.
But Margaret saw something else. She saw floor-to-ceiling windows framing Three Sisters. She saw a great room where adventurers could swap stories over locally-sourced meals. She saw a place where you didn't have to choose between comfort and the wild.
Those first years weren't easy - renovating through brutal winters, learning hospitality on the fly, and somehow keeping the lights on when bookings were thin.
Started with just twelve rooms and Margaret doing most of the cooking herself. Thomas handled bookings on a rotary phone in what's now the wine cellar. Their first guest was a solo hiker from Germany who stayed three weeks and helped fix the furnace.
By the mid-90s, word had spread. We added the north wing in '94, brought in Chef Paolo in '98, and opened the spa in 2003. But we kept Margaret's rule - never so big that we lose track of who's staying with us.
Look, we've gotten fancier over the years - there's no denying that. We've got a sommelier now, heated floors, and thread counts that would make Margaret roll her eyes. But here's what hasn't changed:
We're not trying to be the biggest or flashiest place in the Rockies. We're just trying to be the realest - where you can push yourself on a backcountry ski tour in the morning and sink into a proper meal by evening.
Margaret used to say the mountains don't owe us anything - we owe them everything. That's stuck with us.
We installed geothermal heating back in 2008 when it wasn't trendy yet - just made sense. Solar panels on the south wing handle about 40% of our power needs. We've got a greywater system that'd make an engineer weep with joy, and we banned single-use plastics before the government made us.
Our beef comes from the Drayton ranch, twenty minutes south. Vegetables from Sprayside Gardens when they're in season. The furniture in the new suites was built by a woodworker in Exshaw. Even our spa products - that's a small operation out of Invermere using local botanicals.
We've worked with Parks Canada to maintain movement corridors for elk and bears. That's why our property's kinda funky-shaped - we left the natural pathways alone. Guest safety comes first, obviously, but we can coexist if we're smart about it.
We run free trail ethics workshops for guests because loving the outdoors means knowing how to not wreck it. Our guides aren't just there to show you the views - they'll teach you about Leave No Trace principles and why staying on the path actually matters.
Margaret stepped back from daily operations in 2015, though she still shows up for morning coffee and has opinions about everything. Her daughter Claire runs things now, with the same no-BS approach her mom had.
We've got about seventy people on staff year-round, more during peak seasons. Average tenure is something like eight years, which in hospitality is basically unheard of. That's not because we're pushovers - Claire's tougher than Margaret ever was - but because people genuinely give a damn about this place.
Our head chef trained in Lyon but grew up in Cochrane. Our spa director left a big resort in Whistler because she wanted to "work somewhere with a soul" (her words). Our maintenance crew includes a former Olympian and a guy who once summited Everest.
Point is, we don't hire people who want a job - we hire people who want to be here, in these mountains, doing this specific thing. You'll notice the difference.
We're not done yet. There's always something to improve, some way to tread lighter, some new way to help people connect with these mountains.
We're working on a net-zero emissions goal for 2030. We're expanding our trail stewardship program. We're partnering with Indigenous elders to better tell the real history of this valley. And we're finally adding that hot tub Margaret always said we didn't need (we were right, she was wrong, don't tell her).
But mostly, we're just gonna keep doing what we've always done - give people a damn good place to stay while they fall in love with the Rockies, just like Margaret did back in '87.
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