Let the Plowing Begin!

The snow is falling, falling, falling, falling...

The Big Canyon Plow Truck - STUCK!

The backhoe to the rescue.

Remember the Yurt?

The Yurt in Winter

Brian continues to get things done.  It has power, gas and water.

 

Cement floor is stained.

(Dani and Elizabeth helping him by pulling off the masking tape)

Kitchen walls are framed.  Lighting is up.

More pictures to follow.  Stay tuned!

 

A bonus picture of the wild turkeys that hang out at Big Canyon.  They are getting so big.

 

Creek Power!

It was a representative from Rocky Mountain Power, of all people, who first gave me the idea.  "Did I ever tell you about the fishing lodge I went to up in the Idaho wilderness that was powered completely by a nearby stream?", he tells me with a wink.    Then he went on to tell me that it will cost somewhere around a 1/4 million dollars to bring power lines up to the camp.  That was enough to get me doing some research.  A year later, thanks to a generous donation from the folks at Blue Source and the innovation and engineering from the folks at Garner Engineering, I am proud to say that our camp is now completely powered by a micro-hydro generator from Big Canyon Creek.   Although it doesn't generate a massive amount of instantaneous power, it is stored in a battery bank and provides up to 90 kilowatt hours per day.

First we created a small retention pond

    

 

A 15' concrete dam captures the water

 

This screen filters the water and draws it into a 6" buried pipeline

 

1000 feet downstream the pipe enters this concrete vault where the turbine is housed.  After it goes through the turbine all the water enters back into the stream.  As you can see, although it is not a particularly large stream it has a very consistent flow year round.

 

 

My son, Caleb, takes time out of his busy hunting schedule to check the turbine for me.

 

A buried powerline almost 1 mile long then enters this mechanical room in the back of our lodge and feeds this system which steps down the voltage, turns it into DC, stores it into a battery bank, and then inverts it back to AC as needed.  Pretty cool.

 

 

Blast from the Past Part III

 

June 15, 2007

Cement Pumper  ready and waiting for the cement truck.

 

Doing the final preparations before the cement arrives.

 

The cement truck finally arrives and here comes the cement.  The guy on the left is the pump controller.  See his belt?  That is how he directs the pumper where to go and how much to pump out.  That is pretty cool.

 

 

 

The Workers 

All of these men and children are volunteers (except for the pump controller).  They came to Big Canyon first thing in the morning.  Got the job done and went to their paying jobs.  Awesome! 

      

 

     

 

        

 

     

 

    

Done!

 

Blast from the Past Part II

For those of you just tuning into the Big Canyon Blog, these Blasts are to take you back to see the things and progress that has taken place at Big Canyon...

 

In the last post you saw that we got the area cleared.  Now Aaron B. came on the weekends and volunteered to move the earth so we could put in the footers for the foundation.

 

    

 

Dale and Danielle (our daughter) digging the trench, for water pipes, from the Lodge to the well.

 

The Trench

A Group of men from Grace Community Bible Church came up and helped with clearing more brush for the trench to the water tanks and also putting in the footers.

The Clearing Team

   

 

The Footer Team

   

    

 

 

Everything is dug, leveled and the footers are in!

 

Ready to pour!

A Blast From the Past

 

There is continual progress at Big Canyon.  Nothing I have taken pictures of or anything big that might be noteworthy.  Mostly just digging of a trench for the water and electric to the Yurt and covering other trenches from this summers projects.  SO....

Let's take a ride into the past and peek at what has happened at Big Canyon in the last year and a half.

~April of 2007~

Creekside Christian Fellowship put together a group of men and a few of their sons to come help clear the area for the lodge.  It took quite a crew all doing different jobs with team effort.

 

The Cutters

       

 

 

The Haulers

         

 

         

 

         

 

The Chippers (sending the trees through the woodchipper.  Noisy and dusty.)

         

 

                                       

 

 

The Firestarters (of sage brush and other unchippable (not a word) debris)

      

 

 

The Workers (taking a  well deserved break)

        

 

       

 

Looks Great!!  Job well done.

Clearing Accomplished!!!

(stay tuned for more "Blasts from the Past")