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.
-Jason Huewe
We all came back for another build day (Dan and Dylan) this time to try to add the next runway piece. I was hoping to have another builder assist Dylan today but we figured we get started while waiting on Rhett to come by a few hours later. There was a large storm system that was suppose to be rolling in again this evening and the clouds were a prominent reminder of that.
We started the day talking about getting the ramp lined up… see it’s been having this problem as you see from the pic above. We ended up disconnecting the flat-bottom so we could rotate the bottom transition piece. Mainly when we first started assembling the ramp back on day 9 and 10 the structure wasn’t completely lined up with the ramp and flat-bottom. So after much hustling and shoving pieces from the left to the right and the right to the left we got it into the right position. Thank God we didn’t concrete that section in yet! We also had a small offset with the last runway piece we installed last time and quickly resolved that issue.
Next on the agenda was getting that beastly runway section up the ramp. Good thing Rhett showed up…he wasn’t even really planning on being here to build today. So with his butt on the ramp we got started. I felt like we were playing football. Rhett and Dylan were in the back going to lift the runway piece over the support legs I was positioned upfront doing the finesse work and lining up the mounting bolts while Dan was walking the piece up the ramp. Dylan and Rhett were tripping out and they had good reason too. They only had a few 2x4s to stand on and I even added another one for them to help them feel more comfortable. This is defiantly one of the most difficult and dangerous times of the project.
Anyways got that out of the way and finished installing the piece. There was just a few for the cross braces, we didn’t get in. Anyways a good day everyone had to leave somewhat early and well. We ran out of tape we had to conserve through the day because I lost the other blank tapes we had. So sadly we didn’t get Dylan falling on video…sigh… it happens.
We got to work be beginning on the intial transition leading up the runway. It wasn't at the same angle to the next runway section so basically we stripped it of all its old plywood braces and replaced it with solid 2x4s, also raised it about 3inces to match the same angle as the intial transition. It took us a bit longer than expected but we got it done and out of the way with. Next was the hard part, trying to get the 50lbs runway piece up and bolted in.
For safety reasons I screwed in 2, 2x4s near the front of wear it was going to be added. So that way Dylan can hold it up in the back and the 2 front posts would hold near its position while I tryed to finesse the piece into place and line up the bolt holes getting it were it needed to be. Dylan prepared and got on the runway(I screwed in some 2x4s to place his feet on) I picked up the piece over my back and pushed it up to him. 
Slowly but surely I pushed it farther up the structure and it started closing Dylan in till he was pinned against the ramp! The poor guy was trying to hold it in place so it didn't slide down and I rushed around to the bottom of the structure and tryed to maneuver it around the 2x4s I just installed. Quickly picking it up and trying to lifting it over those support legs. Dylan is the kind of guy that as he would say "I'm just skin an bones. I have no muscle!" He pulled a Hulk while laughing though the whole ordeal. haha Being pinned under the ramp he pulled the piece up and pushed up the section above his head! I did my best to quickly insert the bolt to stabilize the front and we took a small break. haha we laughed at how rediculous it was. Getting back on it we grabbed to other 2x4s that I already cut and screwed them into the structure so he could rest his back end on them.
Were the first runway piece met with the one we had just added today, they didn't line up correctly..........................Not a good sign. One was off by about 2 inches. The reason is we didn't bother to stiffen and straighten out the first piece so the warping was never fixed. It was the end of the build day so we decided to save the fixin for another day and skated it anyways just getting a feeling for it we started mid way up the built runway and almost made it up to the lip of the ramp. Dylan's ankle was recovering from a fall and didn't want to test it from the top...but I did. It was a bit sketchy, no rollin, just basically stepping on my board from a steep angle. Pumping out and grabbing my board I got about 10ft out from the ramp! I was stoked to finally be able to get it partially rideable again! It has been a long time.
Looking forward to the next build day when we will fixing the line up problem with the runway pieces and adding another runway piece to the runway. 
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