Running Rivers, Building Cabins II

[NightTrain]

Pretty much all Summer I've been hauling up building material for the shop at the cabin. This last weekend was the BIG WEEKEND to get the foundation set & platform built. Since most of my friends are my age, 45 or better, I left the recruitment to my 20 year old son to round up a few strong backs... and he delivered.

Getting everything hauled 20 miles up the Talkeetna river is half the battle for constructing anything out there. Then the biggest step is getting that platform built - getting those 12 telephone poles planted precisely square and getting the platform squared on top plus being square relative to the existing shed is a huge task. At one point there were 6 of us standing there doing math on our phone calculators and arguing formulas.

So we started out with these two trailer loads :


And these telephone poles weighed 800# - 1000# each :



Just the freighting would have been a very good productive weekend.

[NightTrain]

Fortunately, we had 4 riverboats to haul everything up. This is at the boat launch in the town of Talkeetna.





This was my view of the trip upriver. Kind of had a blind spot!

[NightTrain]

At the cabin.

[Elessar]

Again - neat snapshots

[NightTrain]

And then the real work begins.



All the holes needed to be a minimum of 4' deep. No easy task with the compacted river gravel, so most of the holes needed to be dug using a Spud Bar. That's where you have a 5' steel bar and ram it down into the gravel to break it up so you can remove it with the post hole digger or a shovel.



My friend Bill supervising. I told him to suck in that gut for the pic!

[NightTrain]

Unloading the last of the poles. That Suzuki King Quad 4-wheeler is a life saver. Put that baby in super-low differential lock and it'll pull anything.

[jimnyc]

I know you're probably still posting, but I have to ask: How in the WORLD did you guys lift the poles? And then at the cabin? And then getting them into their respective holes? I do not envy you guys!!

[NightTrain]

Meanwhile, as we were hauling up the last of the telephone poles.... foundation holes were being dug!





This was taken about midnight or so... getting the poles all cut off at the same level. I pretty much ruined the chain on my chainsaw doing it, those creosote poles are hellishly hard.

[NightTrain]

This was the biggest one, we estimated it to be about 1,000#.







Look at the smoke rolling off that poor chain... I don't think I ever abused a chainsaw that badly. Had to be done, though!

[NightTrain]

And finally drilling the holes to put the big galvanized thru-bolts into the beams.

[NightTrain]

Happy Hour - platform complete!

[NightTrain]

And this is how she sits now.





Next trip the walls go up, and those go fast.

[jimnyc]

I love watching work getting done, and the completion - especially when I don't have to lift a single finger!

[NightTrain]

I know you're probably still posting, but I have to ask: How in the WORLD did you guys lift the poles? And then at the cabin? And then getting them into their respective holes? I do not envy you guys!!

Brute strength, my friend!

That's where the multiple 20 year old guys come in. I can help do it, and I did, but I paid for it later with my back killing me.... fortunately, Sharon was there to give me a massage & get me back to normal again.

Getting them up to the site wasn't so bad because you can just lift one end and slide it. The hard part is lifting them vertically to get them placed just right in the holes, then you have to lift the entire 1,000# and there isn't much room to grab at that point. With the limited room, I had to replace one of the skinny young guys to get that monster lifted and adjusted... they just didn't have the horsepower to do that one big one. All the others they did, though.

[jimnyc]

Brute strength, my friend!

That's where the multiple 20 year old guys come in. I can help do it, and I did, but I paid for it later with my back killing me.... fortunately, Sharon was there to give me a massage & get me back to normal again.

Getting them up to the site wasn't so bad because you can just lift one end and slide it. The hard part is lifting them vertically to get them placed just right in the holes, then you have to lift the entire 1,000# and there isn't much room to grab at that point. With the limited room, I had to replace one of the skinny young guys to get that monster lifted and adjusted... they just didn't have the horsepower to do that one big one. All the others they did, though.

Damn, well done! If it were me, I would have tried, then broke out the chainsaw, and then had a man cave that would just be much "shorter" than yours.