Race Brook Bridge Catchup

During our absence, Richard and some friends spent time chipping away at the bark on the 2nd stringer, tough work this time of year but it sure made our next days work proceed more quickly!

 

On Sat, Oct 27 we returned to the site to find all as we had left it and ready for our bigger crew of Jim, Richard, Loren, Bob, Mary and Steve.  Richard and Loren setup the rigging to move the 2nd stringer across the stream while the rest of us finished up the debarking. 

 

 

With all in readieness we started tugging on the come-a-long and soon had the 2nd stringer up on the new sills crossing the stream.  Time for lunch and think about our next steps. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First order of business was to rotate each stringer to determine which side of each log should be face up.  Quite a bit of discussion on this subject and looking and measuring before we had a decision.  Thank goodness for our new cant hook for making this evolution alot easier!  Next was some noisey work, flattening the facing sides of the stringers with the chainsaw. 

 

 

With that done it was time to scribe the bottoms of the first stringer to fit the notches.  This process involves carefully transferring the shape of the sill log beneath each stringer on to the stringer using dividers and marker.  This was challenging as it was the first time we'd done this and because the stringers and sills were not at right angles to each other, calling for careful work to get the sill shape properly transferred. 

 

Steve scribes the first stringer

With all 4 sides marked (upstream side and downstream side of each stringer on both sills) we rolled the stringer over 180 degrees to bottom side up to examine our handywork.  Jim then put the chainsaw to work cutting down to our lines.  Chips then flew as we took turns with the mallets and gouges hollowing out the notches at each end.

 

Although not quite done, we were running low on time and were anxious to see the results of our marking and notching, so we put the cant hook to work once again and rolled the first sill bottom side back down and with a little jockeying had the stringer notches sitting nicely over the sills,  :) ! Still some work to do on these notches, but it was time to pack up and head back down the hill well satisfied with our progress.  Here's our great crew!

The day was not a particularly nice one, cloudy, but no rain.  We were surprised with the trail traffic during the day.  At least 30 people accompanied by quite a few dogs came up the hill over the course of the day most headed for Race Mtn.  Clearly the Race Brook Trail remains a popular hiking spot.