Sorry for the late post guys. 2 weeks late, not good! Today was a crazy day! Most certainly the most dangerous day for myself and difficult for the both of us. Rhett was out late in the mountains the night before and Cesar refused to wake up early (8am) so it was just Dylan and myself today with Dan rockin the Canon, but John (the photographer) made prior arrangements and had to be somewhere else. So all the photos you see in this post is the day after our progress.
Well mainly today we were going to finish the runway and add the last 6ft piece. Sounds easy right? Well we tried walking it up the existing runway…didn’t work. We kept sliding backwards and we were thinking how the hell we were going to get it up 15ft to its new home. The rope we had was too thin, ok then, our last option…. heave it up the side of the structure. Yep this 6x4ft 40lbs chunk was going to be heaved upward. With Dylan on the bottom he pumps it up and starts pushing it against the structure till it get up to my hands and I was pulling with practically all my back could handle. It was not an easy task I finally took all it into my hands and pulled it the rest of the way up.
Whew! Ok great it’s up. Now let’s get it in place. I was going to have to butt it against the other piece and rest it on the back supporting 2x4s. Another problem now I’m 5’9” and the piece it needs to butt against is 7ft tall. Crap! and it was rotated the wrong way. What we were about to do could have been done a much easier way, but no, blindly chose the more difficult and fastest to pursue route.
Dylan managed to get himself ontop the runway barley hold on. I was going to heave the piece up towards him and balance it halfway on the tip of the runway. Don’t forget Dylan is consistently fighting to hold his grip on the slope of the ramp. Once balanced on top we rotated it 180(flatspin) and then the most sketchy part of the day we had to flip it also (cause it was laying on its back) so we pushed it halfway over the edge and I put myself off the side of the ramp just standing on a few measly 2x4s 16ft above the ground with nothing underneath. I tried to find the most comfortable position I could.
Dylan and I were talking constantly throughout this making sure everything was fine and I was slightly yelling at him cause if he didn’t do what I instructed of him it put me in greater risk of falling or losing my grip. He was stubborn but I’m guessing it was because we didn’t feel to safe either trying to keep this piece of wood from slipping and sliding down towards him. So the plan was once I got on the side wear the piece was overhanging Dylan would hold down the edge on his end and I would push up forcing the piece to stand up and then we rotate it again once I and bring it down flat again. Wow! Easier said than done! Dylan wasn’t able to hold it in place while keeping his grip on the runway and kept sliding the piece kept on sliding back at an angle now and then it hit him. It was so obvious! Grab a freakin 2x4 and screw it down into the ramp to keep you from falling. But that left me in a tight spot.
When Dylan sled off he left the whole piece to me, hanging off the side. I was clasping onto the runway and holding the piece up with the one available hand I had while Dylan rushed around grabbin the screws, screw gun, and wood. It felt like a good 5 minutes went by before he got back up, my abs were sore and my body began to vibrate from holding the piece in place… it was slowly slipping. Dylan finally got the 2x4 in! Thank god we let it slide back a few inches to the 2x4 and began to roll it over again. It worked and Dylan wasn’t slipping anymore. Finally rotating it over we pushed it back up and heaved it up and over the back supporting studs. A few minutes later it was in place and needed to be screwed and secured. I was just happy to get that piece done with! Man sketchiest day ever on the project and I’m sure both Dan and Dylan would agree.
Simple enough next on the agenda for the day was to install the second main piece of the roll-in and mount it down into the existing 4x4. In about an hour we did that and added a set of horizontal braces to keep the width the same on both ends. All in all it was an exhausting 5hrs of work and I really wish John was there to catch the photos of it but you’ll see it when the DVD comes out of this documentary film. Till next week!
-Jason Huewe
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