Leetonia a time of detours

My truck after the detour

Sign coming into Leetonia from the South

If you want to cross the bridge in Leetonia you are out of luck for at least a month. They are resurfacing it. This is the bridge right after the Tannery coming into town from the South. The detour is Francis Leetonia up to Cushman and back down. I went this way and it is a muddy mess right now. In several spots it would be hard going in a car. Not only road closed in Leetonia, but up towards Painter Leetonia where is crosses to connect with Thompson Hollow. That bridge has been totally pulled out, which usually means 2-3 months of work.

With my luck I managed to hit both spots in one day. I was hauling hikers up from Rattlesnake Rock to the beginning of the West Rim Trail on the other side of Colton point. The detour for that one goes down a logging road that connects to Mill Road another mud filled experience. So for all you campers out there be ready for some extra fun driving through the woods.

I spent the weekend at my place doing some spring maintenance and enjoying the quiet only found in the woods. Lee and I have been doing the Mid-State Trail and did an amazing hike full of waterfalls near Stony Fork Creek.  you can check out the Youtube video at that link. We have done a total of 65 miles of the Mid-State Trail which runs 325 miles from NY to Maryland right through the heart of our area. We plan to chip away at the entire trail.

The Turkey hunters were everywhere Saturday as it was opening day. I am thinking they had a rough time of it because the gobblers where more active a month ago with all the warm weather we had. I saw a big gobbler coming off the Mid-State Trail on Tannery Rd at around 5PM. They can tell time real well. Sorry I haven't posted more often. Seems like I am on the run, I will try to pick things up a bit for you all. I have my place rented out much of the summer on AirBnb if any of you want to stay at the mountain girl's place you can rent it at the link. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Bridge parts are set over Buck Run

First Piece

Second Piece

3rd Piece

4th Piece

5th Piece

6th Piece

7th Piece

End caps down creek side

End Caps up creek side

After a very long day seven individual box shaped pieces where dropped down to the footings for the bridge. Four long cables went completely through each of the sections and they were tightened together. Then the last four pieces which will funnel the water toward the hole were bolted on. All pieced were also bolted to the footing.

They will fill about four foot of the depth of the hole with stone to make the level of the bottom of the hole the same as the creek. There are some more retaining walls to be poured and much back filling to be done. They are saying another 3 weeks of work before the bridge is passable. So Labor Day weekend will be a big drive around if you are coming up to camp. They are promising to kill the pumps as soon as the bridge is full of rock. I am expecting that to be next week sometime. That is when I will feel a big relief from all the noise. Maneuvering all the equipment in our front yard today was quite a feat and amazingly enough no one got stuck. I am still suffering from a bad head cold aggravated by all the dust so this project can't be done soon enough.
On a much weirder note, while walking Leo and Speck yesterday morning up the road past Hooke's cabin, I heard a distressed barking sound. At first I thought it was Leo who had wandered down by the camp. It was the kind of bark he does when he sees something and is confronting it. Speck was next to me and the bark was too low for him or for a coyote. The next sound I heard sent a chill up my spine. The dog let out a scream of pain. Now I was worried, had Leo grabbed a porcupine or worse yet, had something grabbed him. I called Leo and headed towards the sound, then I noticed Leo coming toward me. My relief was short-lived when I again heard the barking alert followed by another scream of pain. Now I imagined someone's lost dog caught in a trap or being attacked by another animal.  My rescue self kicked in and I followed the sound up Misner Trail keeping my own dogs close in case there was a predator up ahead. Sound is very illusive in the mountains and trying to hone in on the location of the animal was difficult. The sounds repeated four times and just when I thought I might be able to figure out where it was it stopped. I looked as far as I had could but without anymore sounds it was useless. I went home upset that I couldn't help the animal and wondering what caused the incident.
I told Lee about it when I got home and she said, "What if that had been a Mountain Lion?"
The thought had crossed my mind while looking and I guess if I had seen one, I would have been in a bit of trouble. So if any of you hear strange noises over Labor Day in Leetonia let me know. I know Dee on the other side of mountain heard what he thought was a large cat several weeks ago, so it is always possible.
 Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

The digging continues

Hole looking away from house

Hole looking toward house

Well all the pipes are out from under the road and there is nothing but a very large hole. I noticed an old piece of wood that is quite large directly in line with my mailbox and I am thinking that might have been part of the bridge retaining wall before the culvert pipes. That bridge was a cool little wood bridge with rails you could look over and fish from. The culvert pipe replacement was functional but much uglier. I think they did that somewhere in the mid 60's. Getting to Leetonia other than walking which is a mile and a half for me is now 11 miles away. The block is quite large to go around. The best route around still remains Francis-Leetonia to Cushman not Cedar Mt Rd. Cedar Mt Rd. has pipeline trucks running to the top Ridge Rd and over to Wilson Pt and meeting them is almost a near-death experience.

The sound of the pump they are using to divert the water in Buck Run is very annoying. I had to wear ear plugs last night just to get to sleep. Two more months of this is not a happy thought. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Bye Bye Bridge

Widening road with dug out dirt

Dam upstream

Creek Pump

Pipe from pump to other side of bridge work

Seep bag

old culverts

Access to creek for machinery

Hole across road

Sneaking by our house on the road is officially over. There is a large hole where the pipes once crossed the road. Working in such a small area is a tricky operation. First they had to cut accesses for the pump to divert the stream. Then they cut a work road down to stream and dammed up the stream. Everything gets covered with straw and silt bag are put up to stop any erosion into the stream. They put another pipe across the road downstream from the work to pump the water up and over to a large bag. This bag fills and gradually seeps the water back to the stream.  Hopefully, we won't get any big storms during this project, because I don't think there system would handle some of the water I have seen come down Buck Run.

I plan on taking progress pictures of the work on a regular basis to show you all where it is at. I am expecting 2 months of the loss of my road. The worse part is the noise not only while they are working but the pump runs constantly and it is very loud. We aren't used to having so much noise so close. I turned the fan on last night to try and drown out some of the pump noise it worked a little. 

They are also using the dirt they dig out to make the road wider and a little straighter shot over the bridge. It seems we might have a very large parking area in front of the house based on how wide it looks already. Well, that is the news that affects us. Small in the scope of the world, but huge change in the once quiet middle of the woods. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.