Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

To catch you up, dear readers, this is where we last left off in the ongoing project that is Spring Creek Basin’s newest water catchment for the mustangs:

None of the purlins had been welded to the steel pipes yet in the photo above, but you can see the front three purlins resting atop the pipes (left side, which is the downhill side). It looks a lot different now, in reality, because in reality, if not in blog-time, we’re up to phase 4 now.

Here, Garth and Daniel are about to turn the first purlin on its edge to start welding it in place across the front of the roof structure. Eventually, the gutter will run along the length of it.

Daniel is the range department’s chief welder (!), and both he and Garth did welding on the purlins – one at each end – which made the project go a lot faster.

No pic of any work in the basin would be complete without two of our most iconic landmarks: McKenna Peak and Temple Butte. Fortunately, this location has great views.

Garth welded the third purlin into place across the front of the roof structure, and then it was weld, weld, weld, all the way up the east section of the roof structure!

How’d they get those heavy steel purlins up there anyway?

A little like this …

… and a bit more like this. 🙂

Once they got the first line of purlins up, we got into a rhythm, and they got the rest (on the east end) welded pretty quickly. Their measurements of where they placed all the steel pipes was spot on. I was impressed. 🙂

And pretty soon, it was looking like this!

Here’s a bit wider view. This east end has all the purlins welded now (in reality-time), and the middle section (over the two middle tanks) has a few purlins welded across. This east end also now has all the propanel (metal) sheets in place and screwed down. The guys needed more purlins and maybe more propanel sheets, which they get in Durango. The Durango supplier was out (it’s that steel-is-limited thing), so they were going to get more this week and come back out. With the mercury creeping higher again, please say a prayer and give a wish for clouds for our hard-working BLM guys!