Grampians National Park Trail Project - Part One

I received an email last week from my good friend Gavin Rose documenting a recent dry stone trail project he has just completed.  This is part one of his fascinating account of how he and his crew moved and shaped the large stones for the job.

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"I have been working with a small crew in the Grampians National Park in Victoria, Australia for just under a year, repairing trails by building retaining walls, stairs, culverts and other dry stone structures. Our most recent project took place on a remote ridge near Mt. Rosea, where a new trail had been built that followed the ridge line - with a 200 foot escarpment  on one side and a 15 foot drop-off on the other. 

At one point the ridge between these two features became quite narrow, forcing walkers to pass dangerously close to the escarpment, and it was decided to construct a stairway down the other side of the ridge in order to avoid this hazard. 

As there were very few suitable small rocks in the immediate area to build with, we decided to use the numerous large boulders available by dislodging them

and then drilling them 

 and splitting them, using feathers and wedges, in order to create usable pieces. "

A slow run-off.

Yesterday Christopher Overing sent me the photo he took two days ago of the dry stone bridge we built at his parents property during the Festival of Stone near Montreal last October . The double arches were cleverly designed to accommodate the huge volume of slow-moving run-off (is that an oxymoron?) typically experienced during spring thaw at this time of year .

Here is how the nearly completed bridge looked the morning after the event - this being the most recent festival that Dry Stone Walling Across Canada held during Thanksgiving back in 2012.

Maps and Lists at our DSWAC Festivals

Rocktoberfest 2007

For nearly a decade we have run our annual Dry Stone Wall Festival here in Canada. There are plenty of posts on this blog about several of those festivals which you can find by using the Search button.

Originally named the 'Northumberland Dry Stone Wall Festival', when we held it in Port Hope Ontario, this event got much bigger and we moved the venue further afield and it morphed into 'Canadian Dry Stone Wall Festival' and then 'Rocktoberfest'. Last year the 'Festival of Stone', as it is now called, was held near Montreal. The festival draws stone artists, skilled masons and professional wallers from all over the world.

Rocktoberfest 2009

As in previous years, Rocktoberfest 2009 not only had several special walling projects continuously on the go, it also had live music, great food, special presentations, art displays, kids events and several trade booths . One of the booths showcased (with maps and printed articles) most of the Canadian wallers we were aware of at that time. Participants at the event were invited to leave their portfolios and show photos of their work. Dry Stone Walling Across Canada promoted these men and women not only based on their skill but their ability to get along with others and their eagerness to advance the cause of walling in Canada in a noncompetitive way.

This year the Festival of Stone will NOT be held, as has been for the last nine years on our Canadian Thanksgiving in October. Instead it will be held in June. 

The event is being organized and run by a newly incorporated  dry stone walling group here in Canada which has an elected board and is comprised of wallers and enthusiasts who still share the same vision of cooperation.

I support their effort and hope to be there myself running a tiny-hands-on walling project with some of the children attending the festival with their parents.

Check back here soon for news of where and when the festival will be held.

2013 California Project

Last January we built 150 feet of dry stone retaining wall near Gualala California

Patrick McAfee, Sean Adcock and I came up with a clever structural way of using what was essentially pallets of five to six inch thin veneer mica quartzite quarry material

Patrick suggested we continue with the triangle theme of the dry stone greenhouse that we had already built on site, and so we found a way of incorporating triangular niches into the wall

A series of red sandstone benches were also designed and built primarily by Sean Adcock who found working the zig-zagging stone bench backs a bit of a challenge.

The wall had a bit of an Irish feel to it. It looked fairly rugged and almost chaotic at first until there was enough of a section built to register the rhythm of the pattern.

Here Sean reenacts how he fell off the wall as he stepped backwards stressing about how to finish of the copes on the bench design.

A rugged triangular step pattern was designed and built by the four of us. 

Sean's inverted pyramid which was built into the last section of wall was just Sean A showing off towards the end of the project .

The happy wallers after two weeks of doing what we love to do most.

Sean Smyth ( Sean B) stayed on two more days to finish the last section of wall and sent us some lovely photos of the completed job. Thanks Sean we couldn't have done it without you.

Drawing a blank

Drawing a blank

can be a very creative thing.

It can lead to new ideas,

If we are given a blank in scrabble

it opens a world of possibilities

A blank cheque

gives you financial freedom

A blank page

can be filled with all sorts of creativity

Blank verse 

can become beautiful poetry

*

But in walling it's difficult to fill in the blanks.

We have to use what we have.

We can't make things up !

We choose from a random pile of stones 

We order them to make a wall

The stones are found - not made to order.

Addicted to stone

1 I admit I am powerless over the allure of stones and dry stone walls, and that my life without them has become unmanageable

2 I believe that a power greater than myself has influenced me to see how all-consuming my need to stack stones and build walls is.

3 I have made a decision to at least try to be creative in other ways than just building with stones all day .

4 I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of my life in regard to stone.

5 I have admitted publicly the exact nature of my love of stone

6 I am entirely ready to have this dependency on stone removed, if it is wrong.

7 I humbly ask that my impatience and obsessiveness about walling be removed too, if it bugs anyone.

8 I have made a list of all the people I may have ignored, in my passion to be close to stones, and am willing to make amends to them if necessary

9 I have made amends where possible and tried to be careful not to get carried away talking about stone walls all the time.

10 I continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong to see a dry stone installation as the first or only solution to any gardening or landscaping question, I will promptly admit it

11 I have sought to improve my conscious contact with any higher powers, to enable me to know what the reasons and purposes are for my obsessively building with stones.

12 Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of taking these steps I accept responsibility to warn and help others who may inadvertently come under the powerful influence of stone too.

The Photo- Paul Wakefield  www.paulwakefield.co.uk 

This 14 ft dry stone bottle was built to advertise a special export malt for Johhney Walker. 

It was built by Stephen Harrison with the help of Steve Allen.

Hi, my name is John, and I'm a wall-aholic. 

I admit it.

I support my stone-habit by heaping piles of stones in any way I can.

I am completely reliant on their support. I can't do (or do it ) without them.

I've tried substituting chemicals and mortar and concrete blocks and gone to re-bars but I always go back to the hard stuff - stone.

Every time I see stones I feel this uncontrollable urge to use them.
I admit it, I'm a user.

I can't go by a stone yard with out dropping in and getting 'loaded'.

I drive around all day looking for old walls, just looking for a 'fix'.

I get so carried away creatively sometimes I don't even wall in a straight line.

I know, with the size of my stone problems, I've just gotta get some help* 

I need a 'support' group - some sort of organization.

Otherwise at the end of a day of using the stuff I just feel wasted.

I just can't say 'No' to stones.

I'm totally under their influence.

And can't seem to pull myself away from them.

I respect the fact that alcohol addiction can be a real problem for some people

and commend the resolve (and methods) of those seeking help to quit drinking.

Brett McBirnie's Eaton Project

This is the Eaton Project in Cumberland Village, Ontario, completed January 2012. It's all Brett McBirnie's design, and the first dry stone job he's done, though he has been working several years in heritage masonry.  120-140 ton of materials give or take was installed over 3 months. 

The patios and steps rise over 4' of grade. The patios were levelled in such a way that though appearing to be level, actually route any water flow to specific drain ways. Underlying this are two french drains and a web of nearly 200' of drainage tile, to allow for 0% surface run-off and 'grit' getting into the adjoining pool. Square footage is approximately 2000 sq./ft. It also incorporates a/c power outlets and an ample amount of geo-textile base, as the entire job is built on highly unstable leda clay.

 The stone material is from Wiarton and Riada.The design is laid out to allow for traffic flow between two back decks, while maintaining a static seating area that is separate, inclusive of ease of access to pool. Also, and more importantly, the clients are new grandparents, so while seated at any location within the structure, the sight lines are never blocked by anything higher than 20"... so as to be able to keep an eye on the toddlers making a bee line for the pool. 

Something there is that doesn't like concrete

Sean Adcock sent me this video link of 'How to build an arched stone bridge' . 
He wrote... "Knew we were doing something wrong!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2nJY2tyS8QZS

'Petrofitting' Dry Coasting

It's a tough job, but someone's got to put all this natural California coast 'rock wall' back together.

Waiting for a thaw.

I trudged to our Monarch Bridge last week to take a photo of the creek flowing under it during spring runoff

But winter hasn't run off yet.

The impatience of stones

It has been said that an arch never sleeps.
I think it's because stones don't sleep.
They just don't want to stop.

Stones don't stop with the 'pressure' thing either.

They are so darn pushy.

And -
They are constantly bugging me to build something with them,

To learn something - to understand something from them.

They keep trying to change me - to affect me

The never cease to amaze me, to make me want to paint them, to stack them, to photograph them, to hang out with them, to talk about them, and of course - write about them.

They are impatient with my impatience.

They are in fact, 'permanently' impatient !

When they get going they work up a tremendous momentum.
They basically just want to keep on you!

They never seem to want to stop and turn around or go back or ask for directions

They are so impatient

Look at them! They just cant wait to get down that hill.

Time is just an annoying blip in their agenda

They don't have time for facebook or video games or frivolities or any of our shallow pursuits.

They are constantly shifting, restless beings.
And yes, they are basically impatient ! 

Black House Design

I was going through some old Sketchup files this holiday weekend and discovered the designs that Dean Mclellan asked me to do of the black house we were designing to be built during RocktoberFest 2009 in Grand Valley Ontario – an international DSWAC walling event that he and Eric Landman and I organized that year.

I think the structure we ended up building looked pretty similar.

Kay's Bridge Project 


This is a repost of a video Ryan Lemieux sent me of the 2010 Festival of Stone a while back.

I think it is interesting to be able view this phase of the bridge build from a side most of the spectators were not able to see.