The Texas Beach bog now has a gleaming boardwalk spanning it. Credit: Dennis Bussey

Two weekends ago, Lynchburg native, carpenter and batteau builder Andrew Shaw (and crew) delivered a heap of lumber to the Texas Beach section of the James River Park via multiple batteau trips. The lumber was to be used to construct a long boardwalk over the perma-muddy section of trail leading from the base of the Texas Beach stairwell toward the river. The batteau delivery was A) just downright cool and B) an ingenious way of solving the problem of getting a huge quantity of heavy, unwieldy building materials to a rather remote site.

Dennis Bussey wrote a story for RichmondOutside.com about the day and how it came together. Once the materials were delivered, the boardwalk was expected to take three weekends of work by volunteers from Bussey’s Meetup group — James River Hikers — to complete. Well, as these pics show, those volunteers (along with Mike Burton and his James River Park System trail-building crew) work very fast. What was supposed to take three Saturdays was finished in one. Now hikers can navigate this formerly treacherous stretch of trail without need for muck boots even after a heavy rain.