Experience with Frontier Environmental Services

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During the summer and fall of 2008, I worked as a heavy equipment operator in a large, ongoing project involving the restoration and enhancement of the Pikes Peak Highway. The day after I moved to Colorado Springs was my start-date, June 2nd, and we recently (September 11th) completed this season's work-load.

This is a 6 year seasonal project that Frontier Environmental, operating out of Arvada (website link below), started last year in 2007. I joined their team for the second year. The project involves the re-grading and re-paving of the Pikes Peak Highway from 12,000 feet up to the summit (14,010 feet). Last year's phase (detailed on Frontier's website) took place near "Devil's Playground". This year, we worked on the top 1.5 miles, from mile 18.5 up to the summit, including the construction of a storm water drainage system with natural-dyed concrete ditches, rip-rap-lined sediment trap with weir overflows, concrete culvert inlets, rip/rap-lined culvert outlets, large clay-based retention ponds, and the re-grading of the highway with a 2:1 ratio of Class 5 road base and Structural Fill.

In the beginning of the project, we focused mainly on the restoration and re-grading of the road, starting at mile 18.5 and working out way to the top. After most of the road base was layed in, we started work on the ditches, the culverts, and the beginning of the top pond. The mountain was very challenging, with extreme conditions, lots of tourist traffic, and granite granite everywhere! The excavator went through tiger teeth like water, and the loaders and dozer were constantly plucking and wrestling with boulders to level out the pond bottom and clear way for the inside edges of the road/ditches. Several times we resorted to blasting. Later, we began shaping the ditches, laying mesh, and pouring concrete (a natural-colored concrete to better blend in with the wild surroundings).

When we finally leveled out the large area for the first retention pond, we began to build up a clay bottom and a compacted clay key, or dam, that would hold in all the water diverted by the ditches and drainage system. During that time, I was mostly using the loaders and the compactor, and moving around on wheels on a saturated clay dam is the most slippery thing you can imagine! In time, the road, ditches, and culverts were finished. We completed the pond by capping the clay key, slopes, and toes with fill, setting decorative boulders along the inside slope to prevent corrosion, and built a concrete drainage and rip-rap-lined channel, leading from the overlow pipe to a sediment trap.

Unfortunately, due to the oil crisis and asphalt shortage, the paving never took place, and will take place next year. Instead, we built another retention pond a mile lower that was part of next year's project. It was a much larger pond, and in a less rocky, but much wetter area that was plagued by undetectable sinkholes that would occasionally trap the loaders, haul truck, and even the dozer. This is where I got a lot more experience in the dozer, clearing and leveling the entire area for the retention pond's construction.

From time to time, we needed to buy more road base (from LaFarge), and I took care of the material intake down in the pit. Down around 12,000 feet is Pike's Peak's old ski resort, which is now the stockpiling pit for our project, as well as for the mountain's own operators. Whenever we needed more material, I spent a few days in the pit, managing the dump truck drivers, their tickets and paperwork, their drops, and mixing the materials into the appropriate ratio we needed for the project up above.

On Sep 11th, 2008, we finished our work on the lower pond and completed our allotment of the project for the year. We cleaned and tracked/drove down all of the machines (the compactor took two hours to get down the mountain at 7.2mph!), and parted ways.

Here are the machines I've used for Frontier Environmental Services:
(These are stock pictures, since I didn't have much time to take pictures while working.)

CAT 938G Loader
During the beginning of the project, I used this loader most extensively. When we worked on the road, I was working in tandem with the motor-grader, laying and spreading base, cutting side-walls, grading, and moving rock. I also used this loader in the pond for every imaginable application, used it in the pit for mixing and stockpiling, and used it whenever the crew needed to move mesh, porta'potties, pallets, or anything else big and heavy.

CAT 966H Loader
This larger loader (with teeth), I used for the same applications as the smaller loader, loading trucks, plucking boulders, clearing roadways after blasting, and many other services. The 966 is much smoother than the 938 in most ways (steering, suspension, lifting), and was much more enjoyable, although slower.

CAT 730 Articulated Haul Truck
All of our material was down in the old ski resort, several miles away from the project, so there was a lot of hauling material up during the day with this haul truck. When not hauling, I also used this to lay road base for the motor grader, move material (mud, rock, clay, fill) around in the ponds, and haul away loads of granite from the excavator or loader when clearing ditch areas or after blasting.

CAT CP433E Sheepsfoot Compactor
This was the compactor we used on the roadwork, for the most part. Whenever an area was graded, the compactor followed. These two rollers were incredibly easy to learn and operate, but had no glass walls, so were very cold up on the mountain! This compactor was returned to the rental place (Wagner) when we were done with the road.

CAT CS563E Smoothdrum Compactor
Just like the sheepsfoot, this compactor was very easy to use. It was mostly used in the ponds, which was pretty difficult at times, because the clay was so slick and soupy, there was absolutely no traction. We used this little guy to compact the dam, layer by layer, slipping and sliding, and then again later to smooth out the finished work.

CAT D6N XL Dozer
This was my favorite. I used the dozer a little bit on the first pond, but got in lots of time in the second pond. I really enjoyed the controls and the tracks, which was nothing like the machines I learned in school, and found that the operations were rather easy once I got down the initial premise. With the dozer, I pushed, stockpiled, cleared out rock, dirt, and mud, ripped up bedrock and granite, pushed some more, and did a lot of rough grading. I built roads, ramps, hills, pads, and waterways. Lots of fun.

Here are some pictures (and their descriptions) below:

Here's the summit, where for the majority of the project we kept our tool trailer and all of our materials. This picture was taken on the first day of the project, and shortly after it snowed for two weeks. I thought it was interesting taking the same horizon shot as I did many years ago, except back then I was hiking up the mountain. Now I was working there.

Here's a shot from inside the 938 Loader, where I was holding a bucket of road base and working with the motor-grader. We were two switchbacks from the top in this picture, and the drop off on the left side was the south side of the mountain, over-looking Victor, Cripple Creek, and a large mine. We had stockpiles of road base up at the summit, as well as at 18.5 mile, at the bottom of the project.

In this picture, I'm heading down the road in the 966 Loader. In the distance, you can see the top retention pond under construction, with the excavator, the dozer, and the roller all up on top of the clay dam. We also had a water truck, which I never drove except in very short distances. The inside of the pond is facing the viewer.

Here's "the pit", located in the old ski resort just below the treeline. That's the road heading down, and on the other side of the trees, the pit is rather large, holding a huge, long pile of clay, several piles of different-sized rip/rap (boulders), and a vast, open space that I used for managing and mixing different types of dirt to make our main stockpile of road base. It was a very pretty, quiet area, and the days I worked down there were nice, because I didn't have to deal with the tourist traffic.

Here I am carrying a moderate-sized boulder (and bucket of smaller stuff) in the 966 Loader. We had to cut quite a ways into the mountain in some areas to make space for "edge of asphalt" and the ditch, and oftimes it became impossible without blasting. On one particular corner, the rock was so thick, that it required an extraordinarily large blast. That morning, I stood by with the Loader, and the explosion in the mountainside was like missles hitting above the road launched by helicopters. The rubble covered the road three feet deep for 50 feet or so, and I had to clear it with the 966 before the road could be re-opened.

Here is a picture of the 966 again, this time down at the pit. At this particular place, I was parked on the upper level of the pit, next to the Pikes Peak Highway, during lunch-time, in the only place on the mountain with reliable cell-phone reception (for T-Mobile, that is). For some reason, in that spot next to the road, there was a 15-foot bubble of connectivity. In the background, you can see the old ski runs.

Here are two CAT 735's that we used for most of the hauling. They were too big for the one lane, so they were only run at night. The smaller 730 (which looks the same, but slightly smaller) was barely small enough to run during the day. We also had a night shift, so material was running from the pit to the top all the time.

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