RecPath Repairs at Lane Street

The boardwalk through the floodplain at Lane St. needed repairs.  It had been put off for a while due to all the storm damage restoration and clearing.  Having finally gotten a breather from Mother Nature, we tackled Lane St on a beautiful Fall Saturday morning.

Betsy, Aidan and Gia were our cutting and clearing team.  The briars and brush was growing into the RecPath and was cut back from Lane St. to the woods at the end of the Land Trust meadow.

This was one of the "Before" shots of the boardwalk.  One of the boards was really missing, and a number had holes or were on the way out.  These decking boards needed to be replaced.  

A surprising amount of planning goes into even a simple work party like this one.  One of the preliminary steps was estimating the materials and tools necessary, and getting them to the job site.

Going to Home Depot in Derby for supplies on Friday Night before a work party - good times.  The decking boards at Lane St. were 5/4 x 6" x 6' which isn't sold, but 12 footers are.  Home Depot normally doesn't cut pressure treated lumber.  So we brought a saw with us and did a little cutting in the parking lot to modify the boards to fit into the car.  Oddly, nobody at the store came over to ask me what I was doing at 9:15 at night cutting boards in their parking lot.  I guess it's not the weirdest thing they've seen.  We also got screws and a tool for pulling nails.

The next step was to drive the boards over to Lane Street, put on a headlamp, and carry them in part - way for tomorrow's work party.  It was a pretty night, and I could see my breath.  Fall is here.

Saturday morning was the usual crazy  running around getting tools at the Barn.  We really have to do a better job pre-planning and packing up all the tools in bags the week before so we don't forget things, which happened.  Then drive to the trailhead and deliver the tools to Lane St. where I met Bill Dyer: who, for awhile, looked like the rest of the work party, but then people came rolling in and we got started.

Devin and Mike are replacing the deck boards.  There was a lot for heavy work removing the old deck boards and some of the screws (square drive & torx head) were stripped and had to be pried out or cut off.

The RecPath was pretty busy; there were a lot of runners and bikers.  After some near incidents, we strung flagging across the Path.  People could still pass after we gave them permission, but they had to walk and not just push by.  We wanted everyone to be safe and not get hurt; including us.  

Using the flagging to actually close the trail around the work area worked well.  We removed the flagging at the end of the job.

Some of the boards came out in one piece and others had to be cut out.  A variety of crowbars helped too.  Betsy brought her garden cart with her and hauled all the old boards out the the trailhead.  We will contact the Shelton Parks and Rec. Dept. to see if they can pick them up, otherwise it'll be a dump run next week.

The deck boards are attached to stringers elevated on timber piles set in the marsh.  Some of the screws were stripped and couldn't be pulled out.  These were cut off with a small reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade.  Some side rails were bolted to the ends of the boards (another trip back to the car for the adjustable wrench that was forgotten).  

Interesting fact: there's a lot of animal tracks visible in the mud under a boardwalk that you only see when you're kneeling on the boardwalk looking upside down trying to loosen carriage head bolts.

Meanwhile Aidan was cutting back briars with one of the electric hedgetrimmers.  We had cut this area earlier in the year, but brush +sun +water =lots of growth + thorns.

Gia got some hands-on quality trail time with the loppers and trimmer.  The RecPath looked a lot better when they were done with it.  Now all we have to do is work on the grass to get our full crushed stone width back, but that's for another day.

Devin & Bill were replacing one the last boards.  We replaced 8 broken or spongy boards in all, and the RecPath Boardwalk is back in serviceable condition.  Nice job.

Mike, Gia, & Devin on the repaired Lane St. Boardwalk at the end of the job.  We hauled all the tools back out to Lane St, loaded the cars, and Mike & I put things away at the Trails Barn.

The Shelton Land Trust's Hawley Meadow along the RecPath is at the end of the boardwalk- a "Before" picture.

Thanks to everyone who came out:  Aidan, Devin, Gia, Betsy, Bill, Mike & Terry.  Maintenance is seldom glamorous, but it was a good fall morning to be outside.  

And as Bill put it "I am impressed how we were able to replace bad boards without anyone getting tetanus, at least that we know".  Now There's a performance metric for success on a work party.  

Go visit the RecPath at Lane St. - it's really pretty right now.  Also check out the events page for our Full Moon Hike on October 17th (that's THIS Thursday).