All decked out...

Back in the day, the bridge over the creek in the valley behind our place washed out (Bridge Work 4/30/09). It caused a hassle running dogs, since the banks are 6-8 feet high and the creek frequently overflows. I got in the habit of building ramps by shoveling lots of snow After a few years, a local trapper dropped a bunch of trees on the trail in the vicinity of the creek, then went on vacation. So that 's what got me involved, just clearing up his mess and then doing the log work to turn the pile of logs into a timber framed bridge. My neighbor offered to help out with the deck. When I went to see how he was doing. the bridge already had a deck. While I appreciated all his hard work, he used a bunch of oriented strand board (OSB) he had apparently gotten from the dump. Now I know that OSB has taken over a lot of the uses of plywood, but it's not really good for decking, since it readily soaks up water. Over the years, it's been deteriorating, sagging between the log joists. I tried waterproofing it with some old wood preservative stain, but it didn't seem to help. What really doomed the deck was it became a regular part of the local moose trails. While they seldom use it in the winter, the moose apparently cross the bridge in the summer, often punching holes through the soggy OSB. The last few years I spent a lot of time patching holes in the deck. So when I went to shovel off the bridge this spring, it was obvious that the deck was now beyond patching. As much as I didn't want to take on a new project, I wound up spending the last week or so re-decking the bridge.

Forgot the camera the first few trips so don''t have shots of the old deck. It was so full of holes, it reminded me of the pictures of Bosnia during the Serbian war. The pile on the left is the old decking. The strip down the middle is the new plywood, ripped into two foot widths to make it easier to haul with the Ski Doo..

Wound up narrowing the bridge a bit after re-levelling and straightening the logs.

The finished deck. The project was largely completed with scrounged material. The main expense was gas for the Ski Doo and chainsaw and aspirin and vodka for my sore back.