Remember those two old guys building a cabin up high in the Snowy Range in Carbon County?
Cowboy State Daily did a couple swell stories about them last summer, and their progress building a cabin at 9,800 feet, with no heavy equipment, and at a combined age of 148 (both 74).
They met 57 years ago, on the eighth floor of Orr Hall at the University of Wyoming, and they've been friends ever since. One was an engineering major, the other didn't know what the heck he wanted to be. They've been friends since September of 1969.
Well, I'm one of those guys. And the cabin project came out of hibernation two weeks ago, our third summer on the job. Our combined age this year: 150.
The good news is that we had a mild winter (not even enough snow to knock down a chimney), and we got in two weeks earlier than normal this year.
The bad news was high winds knocked down a lot of trees, and the folks who got in first had to do plenty of chainsaw work to clear the road.
We built my cabin in the early 1980s, when neither of us had any money, using the smallest chainsaw Homelite made to cut up logs for the walls. And now, 45 years later, I'm helping him build his cabin on his land next door.
Two summers ago we cleared land that's about 90 percent boulders and rocks, and 10 percent sand and dirt. You dig with a pry bar up there, not a shovel. We used about 120 bags of concrete mix to pour footings, then built the floor structure out of box beams, joists, and OSB (like plywood).
Last summer we put up walls, built trusses at roof level (no heavy equipment to lift them up), and tilted them into place. Then our sons arrived to help put up the roof sheathing and install a metal roof.
This year we're building interior walls, tacking up house wrap, cutting out openings and installing windows and doors. And there's a heavy wood stove to haul in some week I'm hoping to be elsewhere.
(My old friend didn't plan to put in a fireplace, but you can't have a mountain cabin without a wood stove. Not possible. He relented.)
Most exciting, we now have a Starlink dish up on his roof, and total internet access. Never thought I'd see that.
Unfortunately, I'm what they call a “hangar queen” in aviation: In the shop all the time for repairs - torn Achilles, prostatectomy, four-disc cervical spine surgery - nothing attributable to the cabin work. Through it all, I figured I'd need summers off, recuperating.
But, the great docs around here have managed to get me back in shape for construction seasons twice now, even just 12 weeks after complicated neck surgery.
As they say in Laramie, I'm “back in the game,” but in a reduced role, a “gofer” finding lost tools, driving to Laramie to get stuff, cooking, and the guy who calls 911 if something awful happens.
When those stories appeared in Cowboy State Daily last year, there were a lot of comments on Facebook about “being as young as you think,” and “of course” you can keep building cabins at 148 years old. “Who says you can't do that when you're 74?” someone asked.
But, in the process, we've both gotten a greater appreciation for why most 75 year olds won't be working on cabins at high altitude this summer. We agree that we couldn't do the digging and concrete work today that we did just two years ago, at a naive, youthful combined age of 146.
We have more respect for the ravages of age now, and thank our stars that at 150, we're doing interior work, not mixing concrete and putting up roof trusses.
As Walter Cronkite used to say, “And that's the way it is.”
So far, so good, for the geezer-built cabin way up in the mountains.
Let's hope, like previous years, nobody has to call 911.
Dave Simpson can be contacted at davesimpson145@hotmail.com
