5/21 Hardcore 2

0 hiked today, 955.2 miles N, 1218.8 Kinaora in Hampton, TN

Today started much like yesterday except that I was cold in my hammock. The temps hit the 40s which is much too cold for hammock sleeping. Tonight I am going to sleep on the porch which will keep me warmer without all that air circulating below me.
Everyone got up early, we had breakfast and piled into cars by 8AM. At the work site they had collected something new for me to carry up the mountain. Yesterday I had left my tools up on the mountain which freed me to haul a locust wood log up to a creek about 1/2 mile away. I was fairly lucky as some people had to work in teams of 4 to haul a fully assembeled segment of the bridge up to the same spot. The log weighed about 40 lbs but wasn't too uncomftable just so long as I switched shoulders every so often. A creek turned out to be my worksite for the day. I thought, throw the logs down, add the platform, nail it together, and done. In the end it took about 6 hours. We had to dig out and shape the stream bed which was rocky and hard going. Next we had to dig out the banks to allow the bridge to meet up with them nicely. The locust logs we put in the creek as supports. The hardest part was driving 3' long rebar rod through holes in the logs and deep into the rocky ground. T!
his took several minutes each with 4 of us taking shifts hammering away with a sledge hammer. We added the bridge decks that others had carried up and nailed that to the logs and finally nailed metal mesh to the top to add grip.
The bridge turned out great and bulding gives me a great respect for the enormous amount of effort that has gone into the hundreds if not thousands of little bridges I have crossed thus far.
During this biulding everyone else was busy too. In the end the others had takens yesterdays totals and extended so that we had built 3/4 of a mile of trail in 2 days.
While all this work was going on I also had my best wildlife day yet. It really helps to slow down enough to see the critters everywhere. First as Santa's Helper, Possum, and I walked up the road to the work site we heard and then saw two adorable bear cubs climbing quickly up a tree. We immedately started to look for momma but she was nowhere to be found. Still we hurried along and so I didn't get any pictures. At the work site I saw lots of life in the stream. There were 3 different kinds of salamanders in yellow, blue, and red. Most were as big as my finger but we also found one as long as my hand. Then there were the two crawfish. Finally there was a 1 foot long white worm thiner than a strand of angelhair pasta that everyone was perplexed to identify.
All in all today was a great day, I spent it in the woods with great people doing awesome work and saw lots of wildlife.