Annie Moore Brook Crossing and Boardwalk completes the Bridge Project

In late November 2024 the “core” Bridge team of Larry Kunz, Keith Silver, Chris DeMers, and Gordon Taylor, plus the contractors Bob Hatch and Stephanie Frend were joined by a group of volunteers, including six boy scouts, to take materials on to the site for the construction of the last remaining items on the list of improvements to be made under the Bridge Project. Volunteers on this occasion included Boy Scouts: Elijah, Mitchell, Issac, Garrison, John and Kyle. Adults included Sarah Mortimer, Colin Blackmore, Drew Schaubhut, Leslie DeMers, Matthew Cilley, Abbie Maguire. The pizza lunch provided by the Rebecca Bucciaglia (Bolton Conservation Agent) was very much appreciated.

Bolton Trails get a State Grant.

There was an existing boardwalk and bridge that had to be dismantled, cut up and eventually removed.

Materials had to be located in the valley at the bottom of a steep hill on the southern side. In order to reduce the strain of carrying some very heavy items the 1/4 mile from the road into the valley, it was necessary to utilize Bob’s tractor as much as possible on the flatter area adjacent to the road and before the steep drop down to the construction site.

Moving the materials required finding a suitable route through woods that could be negotiated by a tractor. Bob and Stephanie were joined by core team members on a day earlier when a suitable path was found. It mostly followed an existing trail.

In order to carry some of the items, a wooden support for attaching to the tractor’s bucket was built by Bob. Another technique, used to carry the large and heavy decking panels down the hill was to use three lengths of strong metal pipe pushed through some of the holes in the decking. 6 people (three on each side) could share the load in the descent.

The materials were left in place for just over a week until the bridges at Vaughn Hills and Moen had been completed, then construction work started at full speed to make sure that it was complete to meet the deadline of December 31 2024.

There were several parts to this structure, but they can been broken into to major items for simplicity:

a bridge that crosses the brook that runs through the valley at the southern end of the Annie Moore Conservation Area.
a series of board walks across the swampy region of the valley on either side of the brook. Most of this had been built with “Trex” treads on wooden stringers, but a section was made entirely from wood and crossed a drier area to meet a path up the steep ascent out of the valley on the northern side.

Stephanie directing Bob carrying a full size deck component while Colin watches for traffic on Annie Moore Road.

Colin, Sarah and boy scouts prepare to carry a decking panel down the steep hill

Over the next 1.5 weeks the core bridge team plus Bob and Stephanie with occasional help from Abbie cut up the old structures and built replacements. The Bridge followed the same design as the 10′ bridges at Moen and Vaughn, but the boardwalk used parallel long i-beams (smaller than that used for the Spine of the bridge) 3 feet apart supporting decking panels. All structures were covered with thick GT11 cloth under pea stone held in position with 3″x3″ recycled HDPE; the same technique as used on VH1 at Vaughn Hills.

Bob inspecting the pile of materials at the end of the day. i-beams and recycled HDPE are on this pile of pieces.

Construction began in earnest during early December when the core team started to cut up the old structure and assemble the bridge and boardwalk. Firstly the old bridge was manhandled off to the side so that the brook could still be crossed. Actually it broke in the process because of a rotten stringer, but was just safe enough for trail users to get by while the new bridge was being assembled.

Bob putting HDPE abutments in place. rebars were used to secure the position as was used at Moen.

The route of the boardwalk is crossed by a wall, so there is a break at that point.

Larry makes final adjustments as the northern section of the boardwalk is connected to the bridge

Lots of mud on Larry’s boots as he places supports for the boardwalk i-beams. The mud was completely frozen for the later stages of the work

Leveling the boardwalk necessitated moving several huge rocks. This one was extremely large and four people were needed. In this case a big gap appeared and it was filled by rocks and graded base. On most days the temperature was barely above freezing

The boardwalk and bridge complete with GT117 and side rails. Ready for pea stone over the decking and graded base to fill up the holes at the ends of each section

A second volunteer day was scheduled for 14 December 2024. The core team plus Bob and Stephanie was joined by Drew Schaubhut, Bob Roemer, Abbie Maguire, Matthew Cilley, Matthew Crowell. Also Kristin, Naomi, Len, Brian and Mellissa joined the group.

Bob and Stephanie delivered graded base and pea stone to the site pre-loaded on to their DT15 dump truck which was driven to the top of the hill using the same route as the tractor had followed previously. Drew used a sledge hammer to break up the load (the cold weather and rain had caused to it freeze into a solid lump). The volunteers carried buckets of material down to the the construction site where the graded base was used in the holes and the pea stone was spread on to the bridge and decking. Larry, Keith, Stephanie and Abbie organized distribution of the material and built up the ramps and hollows at the ends of the boardwalk with rock. Left over Trex was used as a barrier to prevent graded base from migrating under the boardwalk.

In the meantime other core team members continued to cut up the old structure. Also the boardwalk was perceived to be “bouncy” so Chris, BobR, and Gordon used pry bars to lift the i-beams at appropriate places so that pieces of left over HDPE and old Trex decking could be slid into place to shore up and support the i-beams.

After all of the material was moved to the site, volunteers moved left over decking and i-beams to the back to the top of the hill. Many hardworking folks started the arduous work of moving the scraps of old boardwalk and bridge up the hill ready or removal later.

Again, the team was grateful for the lunch provided by Rebecca and the Town.