Cutting into a hill for Fred LeClair. This is on the southwest corner of Hayden Lake.

We planned to cut the hill down lower but the contractor did not want to pay for blasting a couple of rocks that were at least eight feet in diameter.

So we stayed on the hill and that made for a very steep driveway. If I remember correctly, it was a 26 percent grade. Way too tall. But that is the way things go when you get a tract builder trying to do a custom job.

We used an advanced drainage system for Fred's job because it would have been very costly to import and place drain rock. We carefully placed the basalt around the netted styrofoam and none of it broke.

The hill was made up of large basalt.

Because Fred skimped on the grade for the last two lots, the County made him take the third lot all the way down. We cut 27 feet into this hill.

We hauled out 80 truck loads of basalt rock and we stacked an equal amount on the hill for backfill.

We had our D70 and CAT180 working in tandem. At one point, we were both on the hill. I was operating the D70 when a chunk of basalt broke loose and tore out part of the operator controls. Suddenly, the cabs is spinning wildly. It made two or three revolutions before I was able to drop the hoe and force it to stop.

Because it was on a slope, the revolutions were up and down as the machine swung around. Kinda like a carnival ride and it gave an equal thrill to the traffic below us.

Big hole. The top of the wall on the right is 27 feet from the base, measuring by laser.

On both these project, Fred promised if we would bale him out by doing them for less than market value we would get all his work. He reneged on his promise and all we got out of the deal was torn up equipment.

This house needed water to come down and septic to go up. Approx half way down Lake Coeur d'Alene on the west side. The project was for Tom Miller. We did several jobs for him, most of them difficult and he was always good to work for.

Another view coming in toward the building. The hill was approximately 25 to 35 percent grades. That took a lot of strategy to position our equipment without rolling them down the hill.

Here is the house that Tom built.

We built this driveway on Hayden Lake for Mr. Springer. Before we built this up, it was a very steep grade. We also did all the water and sewer work.

Another view of the built up drive.

We spent a day looking for the water hookup. Finally, we called in a camera and discovered it was forty feet from where the map said it was and it was under the road. Fortunately, this was before this road was paved. All we had to worry about was compaction!

Water connection under the road for Mr. Springer.

We built several rock walls but we did not take many pictures. Sorry. Building rock walls was some of my favorite work.

A typical septic system installation.