So I had a fun first part of the week and thought I would share it to break up all the meet the student stories. My parents have a rental house in Gatlinburg TN. We took a trip up in April and dad showed me this boulder that is at the top of the very steep, sometimes cliff like, hill right above his house. Technically is sits on the neighbors property. So he has been working with his rental agents to deal with this boulder and no luck. No contractor would quote removing it. They finally got the fire department to see if they had any advice on people who deal with this but they only pulled his rental license for a safety issue until he removed the boulder.
That is where I come in because I said “Why don’t we just do it ourselves” which should have been read why don’t I just do it.
This fellow was on the road up to the cabin. Just sitting there watching the cars go by.
This little fellow and his mother (just out of picture range) were next door to the cabin.
This small fellow lives nearby and got in the car while we were unloading it. We are smart enough to do food first so all of that was in the house but he still went in to check it out. We never found his mother but trust me I looked for her. The sign in book for the last couple of months showed every single renter had a bear experience, most of them breaking into the cars that were unlocked (yes they can open doors).
Hopefully this photo looking up gives you some feel for the slope we are dealing with. A steep slope is defined as a rise in elevation of 15 feet over 100 feet of horizontal space. That is 15/100 or 15% slope. I did not have my measuring tools for grade but I would say we had roughly 70 feet of elevation change (my extension cord was 100 feet and I was using it for a rough guess) over 10 to 15 feet of horizontal distance. That is 700% slope. The part under the boulder is a three drop caused by the soil underneath washing out. The top of the soil are loose leaves so you just slide like crazy while you try to climb.
The first thing I did was start building “catches” in case or more like when the boulder went down the hill. I used existing trees and reinforced them with 2x4s and also created some lam beams out of 2x4s in between those trees or saplings in some cases. The idea was to slow it down if it got loose so it would not damage the house.
Next I used cargo straps rated for 1000 lbs and straped the rock to well established trees above it. This worked great when it finally did break free of the dead tree holding it in place. The straps held it in place for about 16 hours.
So it took an hour just to get the tools hauled up to the rock so I could work on it. This is the first little ledge I could work from on the way up. Dad would tie the strap to the tools and I would haul it up. Then I had to get it the rest of the way by myself. As I said it took a full hour just to get a rotary hammer, 6 bits, a 5 lb hammer, concrete chisel, staps, electrical cords, and water to cool the bits down with.
I am not a geology guy, but that was one tough rock. The outside I could bust off finding a crack to work with. But after 3 hours I had only knocked off about 1/4 of the boulder. After a day and half total I had only reduced the size a little more than a third. That was when the ground finally gave way and it ripped right through my first catch. But the second one bounced it between two young trees reducing it speed signifcantly. Fortunaley the strap had been removed just before. The work did allow me to put it into a slide instead of a tumble. All the work I done on the catches removed the leaves so it slide on loose soil also slowing it down some. It hit the house with a good hit, but only a small dent in the vinyl siding.
These are two of my bits . The heads are pretty much gone. I had a chisel bit and it lost about 20% of the chisel bit. The main boulder never broke or cracked despite over 60 drill holes approximately 1/2 diameter by 10 inches deep. I had two lines for about 4 feet where I had chiseled dow about 1″ or more deeper trying to make a crack but no luck.
I spent a day wishing I had never met the boulder, but while it did not crack I still won because we got the rental license back and the house was not damaged. Can’t say that about my hand, shoulder or back. I really am too old to be doing these type of jobs.
Steve and Barnabas 
Saw this on Facebook…quite an endeavor…glad it all worked out and you survived! 👍😊
Sent from my iPad
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