New Bridge for Curtiss Brook Trail

All done! Note the sharp drop off.

The new Curtiss Brook Trail now has a bridge where water sometimes spills down from a Shelton Avenue culvert. It was the one spot that every new hiker on the trail mentioned as being a problem. We've never built a trail bridge that had a sharp drop off to one side, so this was a tricky one! 

Terry Gallagher spent hours building up some footings

As is so often the case with construction projects, most of the work involves preparation.  Terry Gallagher had already spent about five hours working on the footings one weekend, then drafted up some detailed construction plans and a list of materials needed. At the next Trails Committee meeting, members decided to build the bridge that Saturday, which set off a flurry of activity. 

Lumber delivery was courtesy of Mark Rowan and his truck 

Getting lumber to the work site is a major challenge. The big box stores will not deliver to a trail, and even if they did, the materials would be left next to a road and subject to theft. Thankfully, Mark Rowan offered his truck on Friday. Teresa Gallagher and Mark met at Home Depot, got some of the 12' boards cut to 6', and dropped everything off near the work site. They left the boards tucked in the woods, covered with black plastic and a layer of leaves and sticks to discourage theft. 

Terry Gallagher worked on the bridge footings

The bridge work party was scheduled to start at 10 am, but the footings still needed work. Team Gallagher set out at 8 am to get things set up. Teresa started cutting boards and Terry worked on the footings. 

Terry found this while looking for rocks 

Jeff Belair and Bill Dyer showed up to lend a hand. Jeff has a lot of carpentry experience and once the footings were done, the bridge construction went surprisingly quick. 

Jeff Belair and Terry Gallagher framing the bridge. 
Note the culvert up above.

Terry and Jeff made a great team

The bridge was done by lunchtime and the crew celebrated with pizza and beer over at BADSONS. 

Jeff Belair and Bill Dyer on the new bridge

The bridge still needed some kind of steps, though, because it was a 15" step up from the trail tread. 

Working on the steps 

Teresa Gallagher came up with a plan for that tricky, erosion-prone spot, and built the steps. Terry Gallagher got the lumber and cut it to length. A box using 5" landscaping timbers was chosen for the lower step in order to hold the soil on this precarious slope, with three more timbers across the box for the 2nd step. Much of the time spent building the steps was leveling up the base with rocks and such. But now it's done and the culvert crossing is a piece of cake to get across.

All done! This is looking towards the Pine Lake dam.

And here's what it looked like beforehand, and that's during a dry spell. Imagine water running down that slope and freezing. Yikes! 

Same spot a few weeks earlier