Full disclosure: There's no educational value in this newsletter. It's pure entertainment… Fire dozers, dirt bikes, and snow cats. Life's good.
Introduction
Sorry to leave you all hanging last week. The snow cats outside were distracting. Now that I'm home (for a day), we're back to regular programming.
Railroad (again!)
We peeled out of the gold mine in our mud-caked Nissan and headed southeast, back to our friends at Joshua Grading.
We returned to the derailment project we'd visited days prior. The derailment was wild, but now it was time for the main show—removing the cars for processing and recycling.
Joshua's primary weapon? Their beautiful side boom. Initially built for pipeline work, they bought it at auction and modified it for the railroad. It has cutting torches, monster lifting capabilities, and a yuge winch.
To retrieve the mangled cars, they first used their 336 excavator to reposition each with one end facing toward the tracks. Then, the crew hooked the winch to the coupler, and the side boom slowly pulled one car at a time to the access road along the tracks.
The awaiting 988B and 980 loaders handled the rest. They'd pick up the car from each end and, in beautiful coordination, would drive it to a nearby laydown yard where an excavator and shear would slice up the twisted aluminum bodies.
An added complexity—the railroad shuts down for no one. As they worked, fully loaded freight trains passed at full speed in both directions, only feet from the work area. It was a beautiful sight. Big diesel machines moving heavy things to keep America moving.
CALFIRE
We followed a winding road through the hills above Temecula, CA. At the end was a sign that read "CALFIRE SAN DIEGO UNIT."
To provide background, I've attended fire dozer training at Camp Pendleton for two years (thanks, Mike). CALFIRE and other California agencies spend two weeks cutting fire breaks and practicing their techniques every spring before fire season. The dozers are amazingly specialized, but since it's serious training, I haven't had an opportunity to learn in detail about fighting fires with dozers.
Until now...
Thanks to Zach and Bubba, two CALFIRE fire dozer operators, we spent hours reviewing their Cat D6N, truck and trailer, and fire tender. They answered every question, and I felt like a six-year-old hanging with badass dudes who risk their lives to keep California's folks safe.
Some modifications to the machine include an extra roller on the undercarriage, heat-resistant wrapping on all hoses and wiring harnesses, no emissions controls, a monster winch, additional lighting, an ember guard on the air-intake, beefy brush guarding, and coms galore.
So badass!!
Bikes, Skid Steers, and RC Toys
In the afternoon, we pulled up outside my friend Jarryd McNeil's house. Dogs ran around, dudes with dirt bikes were everywhere, and my friend Ryan Goodfellow with Rock Structures was even there?
For those who don't follow the X-Games or the world of motocross (me), Jarryd's a big deal. He moved to the US from Australia as a young kid without money. Today, he has a long list of medals from the sport's biggest stages, and he's toured the world with the infamous Nitro Circus.
To practice his craft, he's created a dirt bike paradise in his backyard. Enormous jumps, whoops, and turns, all crafted from the SoCal dirt.
First, we watched Jarryd get a "session" in, meaning he flew through the air doing tricks every 60 seconds. Watching a Nitro Circus show from the stands is exhilarating, but watching it happen above your head? Insane…
Now for the actual show… In his riding boots and gear, we observed Jarryd grooming his whoops and turns using a mini excavator with a tiltrotator and a skid steer with a 4:1 bucket. He's not only a weapon on a bike… He's one hell of an operator too.
Finally, he told us to walk over to the shipping containers by his foam pit. He pulled up in a white van, opened the doors, and began unloading what we had waited for all day—enormous RC toys.
For an hour, we moved mountains (maybe a cubic foot of dirt) using a remote excavator, skid steer, and articulated truck. And these weren't any RC toys… They took two people to lift and required genuine hydraulic fluid.
Since about fifteen guys were waiting for Jarryd to ride in the hills, we reluctantly wrapped up. It was Friday, which typically means time to fly home, but we had much to go...
ColoRADo
After flying and driving all Saturday, we pulled into the Buttermilk Ski Resort just outside Aspen, Colorado, as darkness fell.
We walked through the lodge into the snow, and Eric made a call. Minutes later, our ride, a beautiful Pistenbulley, arrived. Landon, our host, and operator with Snow Park Technologies, told us to pile in.
Built for the most extreme of winter events, the project consisted of enormous jumps, features, and the infamous SuperPipe. All for only a three-day competition televised worldwide; the SPT operators work for a month straight (7 days/week around the clock) to build it.
Since they work overnight and weekends, we shot the cats at work high above Aspen Saturday night and all day Sunday.
It wasn't dirt, but the principles are similar. They work off a design, but most work is down to string line and eye. There aren't grade checkers or fancy GPS models. It was art in its highest form.
This visit was remarkable for the three of us. Eric ran cats years ago, and seeing this operation was like going to the Super Bowl of snowcats. Chase loves extreme sports, so being at the place where such a famous event he watched growing up was unreal.
I'd visit Telluride, Colorado, every winter as a child. My face was glued to the gondola and bedroom window as I watched the snow cats illuminate the mountain as they groomed the trails nightly.
Being around these machines with such great people on the world's biggest stage was surreal!
Stutsman Gerbaz
Our last visit of the trip… On Monday morning, we met Shay Stutsman, who owns and operates Stutsman Gerbaz, an Aspen excavation and demolition contractor.
Aspen's a wild construction market for one main reason—money. While ski towns are pricey places, Aspen is on a different level. Billion-dollar net worths are typical.
We checked out an excavation project to make way for an addition to an already huge house, saw a basement dig in town, and finally watched a 336 excavator tear down an 8-figure home.
Why demolish such a lovely house? Because they can… Why settle for someone else's nice home when you can build the perfect one for you?
The most impressive thing about Stutsman is how they think outside of the box regarding equipment and technology.
For example, take their Cat 325 excavators. They have VA booms (very rare in the states), Axis tiltrotators, oil-quick couplers, AMI attachments, additional lighting, and 3D GPS. The inspiration came from watching how the Europeans work.
While some may laugh, there's a reason why they've moved in this direction with their machines. It works…
Summary
After eight days of constant motion, 2,000 miles of driving, new cities daily, and more cold weather than we'd hoped for, the trip was complete.
There's no such thing as bad weather (it's only weather), and when kickass opportunities present themselves last minute, don't ask questions. Just make it happen.
Thanks for reading, and we'll see you on the next one. Hint… We're going somewhere REALLY cold next.
Dirt Talk Podcast
Recorded initially as an internal podcast, we decided to publish a conversation Alex and I had about the lessons we learned in 2022 and what 2023 holds for BuildWitt. You can check it out here!
Vlog
This episode continued our adventures at Bauma 2022 with a visit to @ZeppelinBaumaschinen's booth. (one of the largest at the show.)
Zeppelin was kind enough to host us before and after the show and treated us to dinner and a cappuccino at the booth's second-floor coffee shop/beer garden. #heavyequipment #bauma2022 #caterpillar
BuildWitt Store
We FINALLY have new items making their way to our store. You can check out our wares here!
I’ll see you next week!
