Doublestar Drilling (DSD) was awarded by Alberta Transportation the Spray Lakes Slide Repair Project, in late May of 2018 as Prime Contractor. Pre-project planning was critical to ensure all safety risk factors were discovered and to allow for a proper and timely execution of the design.

Due to site constrictions, Doublestar Drilling was required to position all equipment within a 5m narrow single lane section of the main access road from Canmore, AB to Spray Lakes. DSD dedicated full time flaggers to control the single lane daily traffic. As safety is our top priority, Doublestar’s crews had previous experience working from heights and all relevant training. The other safety concern was that this area is a local hiking and rock climbing spot, and there were potentials risks of fallen debris. DSD mitigated this hazard by placing a temporary fence below the site and completing daily inspections to help ward off any climbers/hikers from entering the construction area.

Our crews were equipped with DSD’s TEI HEM 1000 rock drill. The drill was mounted to a John Deere 350 excavator, allowing the rig to be positioned over the cliff while drilling. The Manitou Rotating Telehandler (MRT) 2150 equipped with a specialized man basket, was used to assist changing out casing and tooling as needed.

The Slide Repair scope of work included installing 77ea Rock Anchors to lengths of 16m, applying 130mm base layer of shotcrete and a final application of 190mm shotcrete to the face of the wall. The wall’s design also included proof testing each Rock Anchor to 133% of their design loads, which were up to 414kN and building a new guardrail along the overhang of the highway once the soil nail testing was complete.

Spray Lakes was an overall huge success and Doublestar takes pride in completing unique and challenging projects.

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