Imagine moving a boulder weighing more than two tons from one side of Resurrection Bay to the other.
That was one of the challenges Lauren and Nick Georgelos faced in rehabilitating nearly a mile of the popular Seward-area Caines Head Trail that was damaged by floods back as far as 2012. The Georgeloses, co-owners of the Girdwood excavation services company Geo Contracting, were hired by Alaska State Parks, which used funding from FEMA to complete the project.
The Caines Head Trail passes through a massive headland rising 650 feet above Resurrection Bay against a backdrop of rolling Alpine meadows, sharp peaks and eventually a sweeping view of the North Pacific.
"At the entrance, especially, there were large rocks that were hazards," said Jacob Gondek, the project manager with Alaska State Parks.
At 4.5 miles, the trail leads from Lowell Point to North Beach and a 6,000-acre state recreation area that includes the remains of Fort McGilvray, a U.S. military fortification built during World War II to defend Seward against possible Japanese invasion, which includes barracks that housed some 500 soldiers. The portion of the trail damaged was near the trail head.
The three-week rehabilitation effort was finished before Seward's big July 4 holiday that attracts thousands of visitors to town for the famous Mount Marathon races.
"There's such a steep gradient to parts of the trail, that we had to import very large rocks to stabilize it," Lauren said. "We brought them back and dug them into the bank so there's kind of a retaining wall that diverts water to where we want it to go instead of across the trail."
The biggest rocks are 3 to 5 feet in diameter and weigh an estimated 5,000 pounds. They were harvested on the other side of Resurrection Bay. They were moved to their final resting spot about one-quarter mile from the trail head using a Morooka tracked carrier. For weeks, there was plenty of heavy lifting for the Georgeloses and two employees.
"It left us a little stronger," Lauren said. "Instead of Crossfit, we have Geo Contracting."
Floods left the trail, which never closed due to the damage, washed out and littered with loose, uneven rocks. Even as work proceeds, some 20-30 hikers a day passed, Lauren estimated.
"Everybody wants to chat and see what's going on," Lauren said.