Mike Pearson's Adventures on a Pale Blue Dot

This mostly a video post. I just dug these few clips up recently from the 2006-2008 years of the Sea to Sky Highway project. You will see in the beginning, several trim shots at Cut 14. These are gentle little shots to get the pioneering road in...and not destroy the power-lines and fiber-optic across the road. The excavator is there to control the blast mats when the shot goes off. The shot is designed so that the machine is not in any jeopardy. The highway is closed by traffic control people, but we only have a few minutes to get the shot done, clean the debris, and then re-open the road. On some days we have 5 minutes total. Some days are 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the time of day, day of the week, night/day and various holidays. There are blog posts that feature more detail on the whole Cut 14 adventure. There are also posts that detail the work on Cut 5, and show how close it is to the ferry terminal below. Cut 14...photos and stuff  http://adventuresinmikeslife.blog...

Cut 14 is the area that was featured in the "Helicopters and Dynamite" story.   http://adventuresinmikeslife.blogspot.ca/2011/11/superbowl-sundayhelicopters-and.html This section of work was at the very north end of Segment One of the S2S Highway project. It featured very tall, steep rock bluffs that had to be sliced and diced to make room for a wider roadway.  This requires that we as the blasting crew have to do "pioneering" work, to get up on top of the rock features, so that we can drill down vertically for the actual cuts. In some cases, horizontal blast holes ( lifters ) can be used to minimize trail building, but it is extremely hard to control lifter shots. Lifter shots create lots of unpredictable fly-rock, more vibration and more noise than properly planned vertical hole shots. ( we did use lifter shots on Cut 9 and 10, when there was no alternative....and nothing to hit with the fly rock ) 330 Cat excavator up on a pioneer trail that's onl...