November 8, 2009
(Pictures Courtesy of John Higgins and Roger Richard)
A group of seven volunteers completed work on four more bridges on Corridor 11 over the November 6-7 weekend. This weekend only one bridge had steel beams and the remaining bridges were built with wood beams. But two of the wood bridges were coined as "designer bridges" by Roger since they the had to be specially built to accommodate differences in the terrain.
The first bridge on Saturday provided our first "design" challenge. Part of a large rock was sticking into the trail right where the bridge was supposed to be located. The solution? Build the bridge deck around the rock.
A close up shot of the final design details the crew used to deal with the rock.
The complete bridge with end logs in place to guide sled skiis onto the bridge in low snow conditions.
The second bridge presented a different design challenge. The stream crossed the trail at an angle requiring the bridge to be built an an angle. The crew call this their "herringbone" design. Bryan carries a deck plank to the bridge while the rest of the crew picks up planks from the pile. Note the right most beam had to be "cheated in" a little because the plank lengths are shorter when they are set at an angle
In the picture, Eric (foreground) pounds down nails that did not go in all the way. Larry and Bryan use Paslode guns to nail the decking down while John (right) marks the decking for runners.
Roger puts the finishing touches on the completed herringbone bridge. Note the double angle cuts on ends of the runners - very professional Roger!
The third bridge was fairly routine. Here is the stream bed before the bridge was built.
In less than an hour, the bridge beams and decking are hauled into place and nailed down. Bryan and Roger are installing the runners. Where is the rest of the crew?
Here they are hauling the old bridge lumber out to the road...
On Sunday, the crew split up into two groups. One group went out the the final steel bridge. Shaun and his dad Mike had gotten up at 6:00am to head out and start welding cross bracing on this bridge. By the time the crew arrived, the cross bracing was almost finished and they started installing the stringers. In this picture, Bryan and Mike are marking the stringers for drilling.
Bryan and Mike make sure all of the stringers are bolted down just prior to decking.
With the decking complete, Bryan and Roger install the runners.
A nice side shot of the complete bridge which now has twice as much clearance over the river as the old bridge.
Eric hauls a large log into place to guide sled skiis from the trail up onto the bridge.
While the first half of the crew was decking the steel bridge, the second half of the crew was busy hauling out old lumber from several of the bridge sites. Here Larry gets ready to strap down a load of old telephone poles that were used as bridge beams in one of the old bridges. These poles were totally water logged and very heavy. John used the winch on his ATV to remove them from the bridge site, but then it took three people to lift each end of the poles onto the trailer.
John did some exploring on a section of Corridor 11 completed last year. He came across this tree that had fallen at the very end of a bridge, taking out the two object markers, but sparing the bridge. He used his winch to haul the tree to the side of the trail before continuing on with his inspection.
The weekends work is finally done. Bryan hauls the welding trailer out to the access road.
Some of the trash lumber stacked next to the access road ready to be hauled to the dump. The club's utility trailer that was used to haul welding supplies sits behind the trash lumber waiting to be loaded onto a trailer for transport back to the club.
Bryan straps down the welder and some unused supplies onto his utility trailer just prior to heading back to the club.
