Sometimes, Life Gets a Little Complicated.

Why yes, building loads at 2:00 am to meet an 8:00am helicopter schedule was a kind of a blur. I had secured use of a helicopter for one day. A lane closure had been obtained from the State of Alaska to close down a small parking pullout to use for Helicopter sling work. Only one problem....the company I was doing business with for the cabin supplies had lost track of the cabin. By time they located it, it was mid-afternoon. By the time the truck pulled into the parking and was unloaded, we were heading into early evening.

Organizing the loads was complicated, because the panels have a tendency to sail if not rigged correctly. Additionally, there was quite a bit of secondary material that had to be built into the loads. Plywood for the loft, doors, windows, etc. Siding and roofing. Leave it to a former Army Pathfinder to help crack the code. Sammy was a godsend, and we wound up with an additional 300' linear feet of packing lumber up there. And we would use that for other stuff. It's hard to get lumber up there.

We would wind up pulling 28 loads safely and intact to the hill. But that was the start of our problems.

Right on time....Air Logistics Bell 206 L-3. Pilot did a superb job.

One of 28 loads we moved that day. The last load was tricky in that it involved the roofing and siding and we had inclement weather in the area.

We had to use cargo nets for some of the supplies

Everything was on the hill now with Sammy, except us.

Apparently, the snow had not cleared out by Memorial Day Weekend. We knew that we would have to scout around these snow swales and we'd need more time. So we went back and Sammy stayed on the hill with the supplies.

The next morning we hit it hard and made it in around noon.

Structured Insulated Panels (SIP) construction was used for the cabin. This was going to be a 16x16 cabin with an 8 foot loft. SIP panels are very strong. Ask the Japanese after the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Roof and floor panels are 8", cabin sides are 4". We'd pull 16 ' of decking and re-utilize the joists for the floor, leaving us with an 8' front deck.

You apply glue between the panels and then install an I-Beam spline, which holds the panels together.

View of the floor assembled with the remaining deck.

Walls going up now

We used the rhino's winch to help get the roof panels into position. You can see we've already installed the second glue lam beam. One beam for the loft and the main beam for the roof.

Cabin is pretty much finished on the outside, although I've yet to install the gutter for the rain barrel. Between the three buildings, we can now sleep 9 people fairly comfortably. We started on the exterior Friday afternoon and finished the shell the following Monday. Roof was a full day and the siding project was a couple of days. Lenny worked on the stone facia a little at a time. When the wind blows hard out of the west, and its raining sideways, it's comforting to crack a book and sip some tea while listening to some music.