Also put in some cross bracing on the foundation since we've added a big sail up there

My thinking is that I'll need more bracing to make things very stable but for now this should hold until spring (I hope).

Anyone think I'm crazy?  Will it hold in this dry cold climate?

There won't be too much wind since we're down in a bit of a valley with the hill top 100 feet above and lost of trees around to break the wind but it does sometimes get windy (I'm thinking windmill but nothing major)....

Quote from: OlJarhead on December 07, 2009, 02:01:35 PM

Anyone think I'm crazy?  Will it hold in this dry cold climate?

With a little luck. I guess there's not much choice though.   

Quote from: MountainDon on December 07, 2009, 11:40:24 PM

Quote from: OlJarhead on December 07, 2009, 02:01:35 PM

Anyone think I'm crazy?  Will it hold in this dry cold climate?

With a little luck. I guess there's not much choice though.   

Not much, unless the weather warms up a little and we can run back out to do more...but right now it's well below zero.  Last I heard it's about negative ten now....so likely it needs to hold for at least a month.

I expect cold temps and snow to plague us until March now

Just checked the weather...haha it's a blamy 0 degrees air temp about 1000 feet below our cabin and 9 miles west (warmer).....the nearest pass report (about 1300 feet higher in elevation (so perhaps 4-5 degrees cooler) is showing -7 -- so I'm thinking that we won't be sleeping in the tent trailer any time soon!

It was 12 here this morning....I'm not sure I know what 0 feels like, this is plenty cold for me.

12 is cold -- almost too cold, but 0 and negative temps are just too much unless you have to bear them and are well prepared.

The cold has kept us away for a week now...seems like a month!  I've gotten so used to driving to the property and setting up camp and then getting to work only to drive home Sunday to wait another week that spending a weekend at home is strange.

I did some work, rested up, and wondered if I could slip out next weekend to 'check' on things

Build a cabin is addictive!

Wow!  Over two weeks since we've been to the cabin and I'm starting to have withdrawals!

I plan to go right after Christmas though   I figure it will be just a day trip to go up and check on things, but it will be good to get up one last time before we start the new year.

Then I'll plan a weekend in January (maybe - depends on weather) to go up and tinker and then perhaps another in February but in March I'm going to take a FULL WEEK!!! 

In fact, I'm already excited about taking an entire week to work on the cabin and the wife and I are planning to go look at windows, door and roofing before the end of this year so we can get those purchases out of the way.

Getting all of that in, plus the wood stove will be a huge deal for us (assuming we can do it in March) and perhaps set us up for staying IN the cabin in the spring summer and fall

We're excited.

OK, this weekend will make 4 weeks without visiting the cabin   But we're planning a day trip (9 hours of driving round trip) just to go check on the site and make sure the tarped roof is ok.

I wish I was done the roof and the wood stove was in but I know I'll get there.  In the meantime I'm dying to get back and swing my hammer once again!

Grrrr....life!

Quote from: OlJarhead on December 29, 2009, 01:35:43 PM
Grrrr....life!

Hang in there.  I know how you feel.  Sometimes when I most want to "put the spurs to it" I ain't got a horse... 

Quote from: OlJarhead on December 07, 2009, 11:55:56 AM
The heater used about 0.30 amps (checked using an amp clamp) when kicking on, then dropped to 0.1 amps and finally to 0.04 amps before shutting down.  It would run at 0.04-0.1 amps for as much as an hour at a time.

This confuses me a bit... does your heater have a blower?  That is a teeny amount of current.  For example a muffin fan like the ones on a desktop draw about .75A.  Are you sure the amp clamp was functioning properly?

If your furnace is only drawing .3 to .1A, you can easily get by on only one 12V battery. 

Quote from: NM_Shooter on December 29, 2009, 07:34:08 PM

Quote from: OlJarhead on December 07, 2009, 11:55:56 AM
The heater used about 0.30 amps (checked using an amp clamp) when kicking on, then dropped to 0.1 amps and finally to 0.04 amps before shutting down.  It would run at 0.04-0.1 amps for as much as an hour at a time.

This confuses me a bit... does your heater have a blower?  That is a teeny amount of current.  For example a muffin fan like the ones on a desktop draw about .75A.  Are you sure the amp clamp was functioning properly?

If your furnace is only drawing .3 to .1A, you can easily get by on only one 12V battery. 

I think the amp clamp I used couldn't read currently the current it was seeing or the cold was effecting it.  I came away confused myself, then did some checking and it can't be right.

So back to square one.

My wife visited the cabin for the first time!  She commented "It's so tall!"


The 12x12 pitch kept the snow off  Had piles of snow on either side of the cabin so it appears that we'll survive through the winter.

I do plan to get back soon though to continue the process.

Glad to see your tarp is working out.  Snow is predicted for tomarrow here, and my canvass "garage" doesn't shed snow very well, so I will need to get out there before is takes on too much.

Quote from: poppy on January 06, 2010, 12:14:53 PM
Glad to see your tarp is working out.  Snow is predicted for tomarrow here, and my canvass "garage" doesn't shed snow very well, so I will need to get out there before is takes on too much.

I was soooo worried on our way up actually.  But was pleasantly surprised

Of course, we have lots of work to do yet, but knowing that the tarp is holding is a plus.  We used some of the felting nails to hold it down and tied some strings to it also.

We took the jeep the 1/4 mile to the top of the property

Great to see that tarp roof holding up so well.  I can't imagine having to wait more than a few days to get back out to my cabin project.  I'm having difficulty even just waiting to go out on the weekends after many months of going out both weekends and during the week.  Today I got the chance to go out and check on things and couldn't resist! 

So now you have months to plan your first spring trip!! Roof sheathing, cabin wrap, insulation and all kinds of things to plan for. 

Looks like you can relax for now

Quote from: OlJarhead on January 06, 2010, 01:51:41 PM
We took the jeep the 1/4 mile to the top of the property

Looks like you have less snow than we do. There is no way we could drive the last 3 miles now. Fortunately we can snow show 1.2 miles rather easily.

Quote from: MountainDon on January 07, 2010, 02:30:23 AM

Quote from: OlJarhead on January 06, 2010, 01:51:41 PM
We took the jeep the 1/4 mile to the top of the property

Looks like you have less snow than we do. There is no way we could drive the last 3 miles now. Fortunately we can snow show 1.2 miles rather easily.

I'm actually quite surprised but I was told that it's been a dryer winter the last few years.  It's colder, but dryer so who knows.

I've also been told that it can get over 4 feet of buildup but that's nothing compared to say Snoqualmie which can get over 45 feet -- and the altitude isn't much different...but again, I'm in an area that only gets around 15 inches of rain a year.

As for you, at that altitude you could get 70+ feet  assuming it had the moisture to drop anyway...look at Crater Lake (albiet a lot further north and closer to the coast)...

Getting excited again   We're planning another trip in a week and a half.  If the weather is agreeable we will work on the rest of the roof framing and sheeting

And maybe cut some wood to start getting it dried for the future wood stove

Finally!  I took tomorrow off work and have 3 days to get out to the cabin and install a door (YES!) and finish the roof framing and sheeting!  I've got a crew coming (well sorta -- daughters fiance, his brother and dad) and we hope to get serious work done as well as maybe a little shooting and ATV riding

Can't wait!

My future son-in-law getting ready to pack out gear after our weekend at the cabin.  He and my step son both stayed IN the cabin   They were warm and comfy despite the fact that they had no door, no roof, no insulation and no fireplace.

So, where to begin?  I put that pic up becuase it was the first to get uploaded to photobucket but in truth I have a few to show.  All centered around the basic theme of 'nothing got done'.

You see, it all started back in...oh hell, in a nutshell we drove up the mountain and noticed that the road was getting pretty slick in spots.  My son-in-laws Dad was driving his Dodge 4x4 (with all seasons on it -- yikes) but I wasn't worried since two weeks earlier I drove up just fine and it wasn't too slick, just several inches of snow.


The boys getting gear rigged onto the 4 wheeler to haul it back to the rigs.

It was late afternoon and we were heading up the hill and around 2500 feet started to get into some ice but I kept thinking that it wouldn't be too bad since a couple people live further up then we have our spot.  However by the time we were approaching 3000 feet we were starting to get worried, the ruts were solid ice!

We made it to the easement road and with confidence I said (erroneously) we should be fine now.  I couldn't have been more wrong!  We turned onto the easement road and headed up only to discover it was a 300 foot long 9 foot wide treacherous skating rink!


We didn't realize that the snow melting off the trees in 35+ degree weather was freezing solid in the 20 degree nights and getting thicker and thicker and thicker on a very dangerous part of the road.  This part...


Once we hit the ice we stopped cold, then began to slide back at about 20 miles per hour!  I told Mike to slow down!  He told me he was trying to!  We knew we were in deep kimchi right then and the truck was starting to drift sideways!

2 to 3 truck lengths (maybe 4) we stopped crossed up in the road with one tire almost off the road with a 20+ foot drop below it!


We said some thanks to the man upstairs and worked the truck carefully back down the hill.

Then we walked up and grabbed the ATV's and used them to get our camping gear etc to the cabin (about 1/2 mile away).  It was clear no work was getting done this weekend!

But that didn't mean we didn't have some fun, work on cleaning out the shed, rode the heck out of the ATV's and generally enjoyed ourselves.  I also put up the trail cam with fresh batteries and we even had a visitor we think.....



That is one of the old prints (within the last few days before we arrived) and the snow was too hard to leave any prints this weekend (frozen solid pretty much) but something was snooping around Saturday night.

This putty tat is probably 150-175 lbs!  Big kitty kitty


Anyway, perhaps in March we will be able to get some more work done.

F&R chains would have been nice.  Too bad

My thoughts exactly Don.  I am constantly plagued with ice to the cabin.  Since I got a set of chains it is navigated with ease.  I got the ones with "ice bars" which are worth their weight in gold.

Oljarhead that is not a good feeling when you have no contriol backwards. Put a whole new meaning of "pucker power" doesn't it.

Glad you were able to get off safely.

Quote from: MountainDon on January 25, 2010, 01:36:35 PM
F&R chains would have been nice.  Too bad

I was wondering how much they would help on sheer ice?  On the way down I hit a spot that kicked me into the old ruts and shot me down 500 feet of mountain road with no (to very little) control!  I told the boys to hang on and away we went like a toboggan ride from hell!

That was scary.

So it's either serious studs or some kind of chains that will get me up and down without issue.

Quote from: Redoverfarm on January 25, 2010, 01:58:10 PM
My thoughts exactly Don.  I am constantly plagued with ice to the cabin.  Since I got a set of chains it is navigated with ease.  I got the ones with "ice bars" which are worth their weight in gold.

Oljarhead that is not a good feeling when you have no contriol backwards. Put a whole new meaning of "pucker power" doesn't it.

Glad you were able to get off safely.

I'll have to get a set of those!  I hate the idea of not being able to go up there and get work done.