July 4, 2013

Today was a big day.  The job was to raise the 30′ x 5′ bridge on the Little Net River in the Harlis Bypass up 20 inches.   Pedestals were designed and built for each end that will allow the water to flow through when it goes over the rivers’ banks.  A 6′ ramp was added to each end and the west approach was rerouted to straighten the trail to get a straight shot at the ramp on that end.  The bridge that was dragged to the spot the day before was used to span an intermittent creek on that new west approach trail segment.

Rob Hammerlund and Mike and Cole Enstad  used most of their 4th of July (we worked from 9:00 – 6:00) to help do the construction work.  We rented a “farm jack” (looks like an old bumper jack) for $9 that worked great to lift the ends of the bridge, but was a bit reluctant to lower it down.  It was ugly hot and we took a couple of breaks back at the trucks to pound down some cold liquids and melted energy bars.  It turned out that a logger is about to remove the trees from that west 1/2 mile of the Harlis Bypass and had already improved the Interstate and made a logging landing  right at the singletrack entrance.  It was no problem to drive our trucks to the trail and park in the big parking lot that they had just made.

It was great to get this done as it had been in the planning stage for about 1.5 months and the bridge was washed out again for the fourth time this year.

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