Drill Bits and Dynamite Part Five

The first major blasting job in Segment One ( West Vancouver ) of the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project. On the south side of the Upper Levels Highway, we need to blast and dig a road, so that a large retaining wall can be built. The interesting factors are.... a very busy highway right beside us....and a steep drop off that leads directly to houses and a road below us. The first of the Tamrock Ranger 800 drills has now arrived, and this is the first test. No one on the crew has even touched one of these hi-tech machines before. The vendor, Traxxon is with us constantly during the early days of breaking in the drill and operators. Because we are so close to the highway and bridge structure, we dial down the hole size to 1 3/4" and use 1 1/4 dynamite for a kinder, gentler blast. Large rubber blast mats are used on every shot. We over-did it with the mats on most shots, because we were only waiting for gaps in traffic before pushing the go button. We really couldn't afford to have a stray rock pop out at a bad time. The first pics are of the untouched site, we are trying to figure out how to proceed. After we got going, an 80,000 dollar catch fence was installed to catch any loose rocks that might take off down the slope towards the houses.

A wall needs to be built in front of this bridge....then backfilled...then the bridge will be removed in sections

Steep drop to the houses directly below

Looking west at the area we need to build a road into

The trail down was treacherous to walk on

The original Highways Dept fence to keep people out....it didn't work...there was one or two squatters camping there when we started

Day one ...move the heavy gear in to strip off the over-burden material

Ripping through the soft and broken rock

The safety catch fence goes up

Working inches away from live traffic on the Upper Levels Highway, looking west

The Ranger 800 finally gets some work to do ....right beside the road

A heavily matted, lightly loaded shot ready to go

The boys loading a shot with dynamite

Lots of heavy blast mats keeps the safety factor nice and high

In the really steep section the mats wanted to jump and head down the hill....so we tied them back before hitting the button

Paul Cooper loading a shot beside the bridge footing...although  the bridge was going to be demolished, we didn't want to damage it before that...and we were 100% successful

Removing the mats after a shot....being a blaster is a very physical job

Loading another blast, the machine operator Wayne Tyson is probably telling them that they are doing it wrong

Making good progress, and decent haul road is developing

The bridge is still standing, no cracks in the footing

It's not uncommon to use the hoe bucket to hold down the mats from flying up
Komastu highwalker hoe

Loading rock into a six wheel drive truck, the safety fence is getting filled up with broken rock

Almost tamed and civilized

Scraping out loose rock at the east end

Drilling and installing the first rock bolts of the job....to stabilize the wall above the workers

Finally good enough for a tri-drive highway truck to get down there

The carpenters go in to start the footing for the retaining wall

Coming right along with the  massive footing

This was ugly!   drilling through the steel re-enforced footing to install 30 ft rock anchors....chewed up lots of gear doing that

That turned into one big hole.... the hoe -drill is struggling with more anchor placements

The carpenters going full tilt on the wall construction

Big changes from when we started

The wall coming up...all very civilized now