First trip to the site:

The goal of the first trip was to take a look at the area, topography, soil conditions, access to the site, and to get a better understanding of what we have available to work with. We met Doug and Linda, the owners of the site that are interested in building a rammed earth house, at the site on May 16/2013. This was the second time that we had met them and both parties are eager to start the project, Doug has been collecting various items over the years to help get the project going and was more than happy to share his ideas for the site. The major goal of the first trip was to starting testing some soil and to see what was naturally available and what would have to be trucked in. So Dale, Doug, and myself  started by taking a tour of the site, looking at different features, digging a couple test holes and exposing some banks, all the tests turned out different results.



The first area we looked at the soil we found was a good mixture of clay and fine sand/silt that was easily rolled into a ball with the addition of a small amount of water (this is sample #1 in the jar).

The second area was an area that had large exposed face from where the previous owner or a logging company had excavated. This allowed us to look at a large depth of soil where we found a large band of clay with minimal topsoil (this is sample #2 in the jar). The soil from test areas #1 and #2 are very similar in composition.

The third area we looked at was at a lower elevation and closer to the river that runs through the site. For this area we dug about a 4'-6" deep hole and found a fine layer of topsoil and organic matter, and a 4' layer of a fine golden sand that contains little or no organic matter. We are all hoping that this golden sand will prove useful. The bottom layer was composed of a river rock type of gravel (jar #3).

The fourth area we looked at was close to the area where we think we will build. We dug into the slope of a previously cut face and found more clay, this time close to the site. This clay was also similar to that of areas #1 and #2 (jar #4).

The fifth and final area we tested was again lower and closer to the river but this time we found a coarse river type of sand under 3' of the same golden fine sand. We were happy to find the coarse sand as we hoped it would help complete our possibilities of soil combinations (jar #5).

Although Dale and I had plans to spend the night at the site we felt we completed are goals of the trip and decided to take the scenic trip back to Kamloops through Clearwater.