I was able to attend the 2nd annual gentlemen's weekend this year. From 21 October - 24 October up to 15 guys passed through the cabin. The main project for this year was to reroof the cabin. Since I spent most of my time on the roof most of the pictures are of the cabin as the job progressed. I took pictures when I was off the roof, hence their sporadic nature.
Not all of our time was spent on the roof, there were a few other side "highlights" of the weekend.
I arrived on Thursday, 21 October around 3:00 PM. We had found some nice topographical maps of the area online and had a nice printout. On these maps are small markers for each cabin site. Most of them we have never seen. As soon as I arrived there was a group heading out to visit some of these sites. We found a few of them, and then the "fun" began.
The sites we were unfamiliar with were old sites, mostly full of junk. The last cabin site we were looking for was down a narrow jeep trail. Being "smart" after driving down it a bit we decided it would be best to get out and walk the rest of the way. Being even "smarter" we decided to back the truck up to make sure it was on firm ground .... You can see where this is going. The pictures tell the story.
We spent a long time trying to get it out. All attempts failed. In the end we had to walk back to the cabin, about 3 miles. On the way it was snowing, quite intensely at times (I enjoyed it, but I am like that). During the walk Bill was on the phone with others who were arriving. They were having a hard time following the directions and ended up turning too early, that is, they turned down the trail for "the loop" .... You see where this is going. They got stuck too. So, after walking back we went down to try to get them out. Pushing, rocking, digging, using the jack; nothing worked. Finally we hooked a rope up, attached it to my Vue, and I was able to pull them out. After that it was back to the cabin for beer, and beer, and ..., eventually some food.
The short version of Ted's truck is that someone from hardware store came out with a truck and after numerous times (10 I think) of getting a head of steam and yanking on the truck it was eventually freed. It was stuck quite well. There was no way we were going to get it out without external help.
All in all this proves that we don't need Vittoria to get vehicles stuck!
The other main activity was shooting guns. As the sun set and it wasn't safe to be on the roof anymore what else would you do but shoot guns (that sounds safer, right?) There were many, many guns available and it was fun shooting them all. The highlight was a pumpkin Ted brought up that was full of partially set, red gelatin. It got hit at one point and appeared to be bleeding before it was finally obliterated by a shotgun blast. (This same blast cut the 2 by 6 in half too.)
As noted above the main task was roofing. It was an immense task. A great group of guys were involved in its completion and it couldn't have been down without all the hard work everyone put in. There were crews of people removing shingles, sheathing, cutting special pieces of wood for the sheathing, putting on tar paper, .... It was particularly difficult since in some places there were 3 layers of shingles to remove with no sheathing underneath. I cannot overstate the amount of work that was completed in a short few days.
This Herculean task was completed just as the rain started. We literally came off the roof just as the first drops came down and started to increase in intensity. The final pictures show the newly shingled roof doing its job, keeping rain out of the cabin!
As someone who gets to visit the cabin frequently I, along with Jon and Bill (and certainly Amelia and Vittoria) are extremely grateful of the selfless work performed by all the gentlemen. This trip up involved many hours of work every day. We have alread planned to not plan any major projects for next year!
There are many other things that occurred at the cabin. The meat, the beer, the rye (enough said). A small group even went adventure camping. I will end this with a few choice quotes from the weekend. You had to be there ....
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craig@copi.org
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