Almost finished, Bridge at Rincon Environmental Education Center

There was a good turn out of volunteers today to work for the completion of the lower bridge on the nature trail at the Rincon Environmental Education Center. The plan was to haul more rocks to fill in the Northern side of the West approach, finish cutting and installing the hand rails, have lunch and then finally seal all of the wood once again after the bridge was finished being built.

The Fisheries Volunteers organization provided lunch for all of the Trailbuilders volunteers and the many other volunteer groups that were there working on turning the older sheds at the Education Center in to Old Tyme mining camp buildings. (I have photographs of that offered below.)

Lunch was great! We rarely get to have a hot lunch for these volunteer efforts and it was a very welcome change. Karen (USFS) brought up a large cake (photograph below) however I think that the Trailbuilders had stuffed ourselves with so much lunch that we didn't have much room for anything else.

Note to self: We ran out of cold water and cold drinks so it might be good to maybe even double up what we carry up on the next hot work day.

We pretty much split in to three teams, one team locating and hauling large rocks and dumping them in the general area of the bridge footing, another team to fit those rocks in to the footing and to locate smaller rocks and gravel to fill in the gaps, and the other team cutting, drilling, and fitting in the remaining wood for the railing.

Power tools were used to cut, drill, and screw the wood in to the frame, and then later for sanding some of the rough areas of the wood and for sanding out the wood putty used to fill in the counter-sunk screws.

For that to work we hauled in a gasoline-powered electric power generator which sat mostly quietly on the bridge and behaved itself. Because we run power tools, we had also carted up the fire extinguisher and two large buckers of water just in case. Safety is always the number 1 priority for these efforts and we always plan ahead -- and keep a Forest Service radio powered up at all times to keep informed about what's going on around the forst.

Freddie (USFS) came by to assist where things needed to be done, and Karen (USFS) ran her two children across the bridge -- which is the first time any "civilians" have ever used the completed bridge. And the volunteer woman -- I didn't catch her name -- who takes school kids through the nature trail during the year was also there to get a look at the general condition of the trail and the new bridge.

The bridge looks great! There are a couple of remaining things to be done once some additional wood is brought in to complete the last section of railing. But the bridge can be used.

And what fun it was, too! The day was hot and the bridge is in exposed sunlight but there was enough cold drinks and tank water at the Center to cool off in. It's always good exercise to haul rocks.