Over the next few months, we operated with a single goal in mind: finish the exterior structure.
We wanted some reliable shelter for ourselves, and we needed to protect all the supplies that the helicopter had already delivered. Among other things, we had lots of exposed wood, bags of dry cement, numerous tools, including many that were power tools, and a gas powered generator to operate whichever tools needed electricity. Winter rain was a looming threat to all of this.
By November of 2009, we achieved our goal. We framed the walls, raised the A-frame rafters, nailed down the exterior walls and windows and doors, applied several coats of paint to all the exposed wood, and mounted the sheet metal roofing.
We now had a fully enclosed, weather-proofed shelter.
We also began working on renovating the entire canyon trail. Trail work is backbreaking work and it mostly goes unnoticed by others, but it’s incredibly rewarding to do it, and it provides one of the most important factors to a cabin in the middle of nowhere: access. It’s hard to truly appreciate a trail until you’ve actually done trail work, but once you’ve done it, you quickly learn to appreciate every trail you’ve ever walked on.
I say “we” renovated the trails, but the truth is that nobody is a more skilled and artful trail master than Uncle Tim. When it comes to trail work, “we” mostly means Tim, with some help from the rest of us. He is a mountain carving god. He even builds stairs. Ridiculously awesome stairs. I used to hate doing trail work when I was growing up, but now I enjoy it and I take great pride in it. That’s in large part thanks to Tim! Happy trails to us.
