Building a Shelter!

Recently Tom and I have become involved with the Friends of the Ouachita Trail, as members, Trail Maintainers, and now volunteers on helping to build the new Stateline Shelter. 

The Stateline Shelter is located at the Oklahoma/Arkansas State Line at about MM 47, I think, on the Ouachita National Recreation Trail.

On Wednesday, October 1, Tom and I drove up to Broken Bow, Ok. to spend the night at a hotel so we could get up on Thursday morning refreshed and ready to help build a shelter.  This will be our first time as volunteers on a project like this, so we are excited to be a part of it.

We drove on the Talimena Scenic Drive

                               ... in the fog....

and we parked when we got to the State line....

 then walked down to the shelter site.  It was a foggy morning and this was our first view of the project as we walked down the trail to it:

These FoOT volunteers are a hardy bunch of hard working folks!  The shelter quickly began to take shape!

 They had a generator to power all their power tools...

 ...and there was something for everyone to do...

...a lot of digging and breaking up rocks in the ground to make a trench for the foundation.

I spent most of my time gathering up rocks of all sizes into a bucket and dumping them in a large pile.

Here is how the project progressed throughout the morning....

A whole lot of teamwork is involved with a project of this kind.

 

It sprinkled rain off and on and the sun would peek out occasionally in the afternoon but mostly it stayed foggy until lunch time.

 Everyone packed in their own lunch and found a place to sit for a much appreciated break.

 

Following a lunch break, it was back to work, as the shelter slowly took shape.

                               One log/timber at a time.....

This wire mesh will keep critters from burrowing under the shelter's floor where hikers will be sleeping.  Rocks will be placed on the outside of this wire mesh.

Tom helps to build two sawhorses which will be used when cutting the roof timbers.

This huge cross timber really takes teamwork to lift it up into place!

Little by little, one log and one board at a time....

Here is our pile of rocks that we have been gathering all day!

Tom and I had to leave around 3:00 p.m. for the five-hour drive home since we both have to work on Friday.  The great team of volunteers finished this shelter on Friday and Saturday, and hauled out all their tools and equipment!  What an accomplishment!

We went back on Sunday (before our Shakedown Hike) and took these photos of the finished Stateline Shelter!

 Such a pretty setting for a Shelter!

 Hikers will lay out their sleeping bags on that wood floor to sleep under a roof.  Can you see the wood pegs along the top of the wall?  These are great for hanging backpacks or other gear.

 These are nice shelves for cooking or whatever.

A nice picnic table and a fire pit with a rock wall to sit on by the fire.  What more could a hiker want?

Friends of the Ouachita Trail are building these shelters about every ten miles along the Trail.  The Shelter Project should be complete in 2016.  For information on the Ouachita Trail http://friendsot.org

Tom and I look forward to volunteering on another Shelter Project!