Let the winter winds come and the typical 8 feet of snow begin to fall.
The walls are up, a very secure roof is in place, and season two of what a pair of old Wyoming guys call a “promise-fulfilled” quest to build their second cabin at 9,500 feet in the Snowy Range west of Laramie is a success.
Septuagenarians Larry Ash and Dave Simpson are quick to admit that the final push to get the roof on before the snow starts to fly in the high country was made possible thanks to some timely help from a couple of younger hands.
“It went great. With the help of Dave’s son and my son, we got the sheathing up there and the metal put on,” said Ash of Casper, one half of the veteran summer work crew that pounds Pabst Blue Ribbons after pounding nails on their swan song project.
“We would have liked to get a little more finished up on the metal, but you know, we are 74 and we can only do that for so long at that age and the weather starts to impact,” Ash added.
The last time Cowboy State Daily checked in on Ash and Cheyenne resident Simpson in July, the pair had the walls up on the 24-by-32-foot structure and were preparing to build and install trusses.
Simpson said Ash had thought through how the pair could accomplish the trusses without the benefit of a device to lift them into place. After they had the exterior walls completely installed around the cabin, and an additional wall in the middle, they erected a platform on top of the walls.
“We built the trusses 8 feet off the floor, and then what we did was tilted them in place and it worked,” Simpson said. “It was Larry’s idea, and it was just perfect, because we don’t have heavy equipment.
"They were great big, heavy trusses to handle the snow load, so we had to build them on site.”
Building a cabin the Snowy Range is more than a retirement project for the lifelong friends, it’s a way to capture lightning in a bottle again. They built their first cabin together decades ago, which is Dave’s. This one’s for Ash.
They don’t move as easily or recover as quickly as they did as younger men, but this time around they appreciate the experience of building and creating something together much more.
Larry Ash and Ben Simpson, Dave’s son, measure some steel for the cabin roof. (Courtesy Dave Simpson) 
Larry Ash works on chimney preparation for his cabin. (Courtesy Dave Simpson) 
Larry Ash and Dave Simpson were able to go from just a foundation and floor to walls and roof during their second season of building Larry’s cabin. (Courtesy Dave Simpson) 
Dave Simpson and Larry Ash built the log cabin a short way from Larry’s 40 years ago. (Courtesy Dave Simpson) 
Larry Ash’s cabin project in the second season succeeded in getting the walls up and the roof on. (Courtesy Dave Simpson)
Stray Nail
Erecting the trusses was especially painful for Ash. He was on a scaffold and using a nail gun as they toenailed wood in place securing the trusses.
His nail gun was at a different angle than he realized.
“I split the board, and the nail went all the way through the board and through my index finger on my left hand,” Ash said. “It’s kind of a shock when you look down and there’s a nail all the way through your finger.”
Simpson said he heard his buddy say, “Oh!” Then he watched him pull the nail out of his finger.
Work was done for the day as Ash made a trip to Casper to see a doctor, where an X-ray showed it had missed his bone.
The next weekend, the pair was back at it.
Simpson said he also was hurt during the truss building process. A trapezius muscle in his back became strained, which meant he had to curtail heavy lifting.
The pair pondered how they were going to get the heavy sheathing onto the roof, but that was solved when both of their sons arrived and handled hauling and placing the boards on the roof, and nailing the sheathing.
They also helped put the metal on the roof.
Ash said he was on the roof tacking down material on top of the plywood sheathing to be a barrier between the wood and the metal. He also helped put on the metal from a scaffold along the roof.
Ash said his cabin project sits within a “holler” of Simpson’s log cabin that the pair erected together in the 1980s. Unlike Simpson’s structure, which is all of logs, Ash has used dimensional lumber.
Last summer, the pair got started on the quest to allow Simpson to keep his 40-year-old promise to help Ash build his cabin.
They installed foundation piers and blocks and then beams for the floors. Simpson said Ash precut the materials in the winter in his Casper garage and hauled the materials up each weekend they worked.
Impressive Roof
With the floor and foundation in place as they began this summer, the pair can now look back on some serious accomplishment.
Simpson said people who have looked at Ash’s sturdy roof have been impressed.
“He was an engineering student for a while, but ended up a business major,” Simpson said. “But he made sure everything was essentially overbuilt when it came to handling the snow load. Everybody who sees it says, ‘Oh my gosh, this thing, it’ll withstand the load easily.'”
This summer’s effort took up nearly every weekend from Father’s Day on. Simpson is back on the mountain this weekend to close his cabin for the year.
Although limited for the last part of the summer due to his injury, Simpson said he enjoys the carpentry.
A longtime newspaperman and journalist in the West, after leaving his publishing role and moving to Cheyenne in 2006 he bought, fixed up, and “flipped” a series of four houses.
Ash said while carpentry may not be his preferred hobby, he has long been a “hands-on” guy who built and fixed things as needed.
This winter, Ash has a goal of preparing for interior work next summer.
Tentative plans call for a couple of bedrooms, kitchen area, living room, bathroom and a wood stove to heat the space. He will check in with engineers on what is possible in terms of a toilet and septic.
Electricity may come from a generator or a battery that powers a couple of lights — or potentially a solar panel. The nearest electric lines are more than 15 miles away.
He plans to keep it simple.
“It’s a cabin,” Ash said.
Simpson said the lots where their cabins now sit are part of a subdivision that has water supplied during the summer from plastic pipes connected to large tanks filled from stream water farther up the mountain.
A Porch Plan
One thing that Ash says is a priority for next year is a porch and he plans to cut the lumber for it over the winter.
The goal is to have his cabin done enough to be inhabited before the snow starts in fall 2026.
Simpson said from his own cabin porch that he sees deer, moose, and foxes. In the fall, he can hear the elk, though he has not seen one.
For all the years he has owned the cabin, the thought of selling it has never crossed his mind.
It's the summer and early fall seasons that bring him to it annually. Simpson has been to his cabin once in the winter after borrowing a snowmobile to make the trek many years ago.
There is no enthusiasm to try that again.
He prefers the setting when it is warmer, and he can sit on his porch and enjoy the solitude and a fire in his fire pit.
“For years, it’s been a great place to take a good book and kind of enjoy some solitude,” he said. “For the last two years, we’ve been too busy working on Larry’s cabin.”
And Ash is thankful for his help, just as Simpson was for Ash’s four decades ago.
“I had planned on attempting it all by myself. But there’s just no way,” Ash said. “There were times where I just needed somebody else. And it gets kind of freaky when you’re up there, you know, kind of balancing on stuff all by yourself. Having somebody with a cellphone to dial 911 is critical.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
