progress report: rock retaining wall

part of the trouble and the joy of having a building site on a river like the animas is that it is constantly changing.  in the spring the river is high and fast from all of the snow melt up the valley.  in the fall the river is low and slow moving as it is now.  this means the river banks are also constantly changing and erroding.  on our property we have several large bushy birch trees along the embankment.   these aid in keeping the soil in place and the rivers edge from further erosion.


because of the drop off from the level where the house will sit down to the river bank we have to design a retaining wall.  it has been a definite struggle for us to decided what type of wall we want.  the wall will be most visible from the river and the lower "yard" area so a natural look is probably best, which is why we ultimately decided on a boulder wall.  however, we explored many other looks before coming to this conclusion.

Steel retaining wall from Mulch Maid

Wood retaining wall with decorative wood posts via The Family Handman

Beautiful stacked stone wall via John Ziegler Landscaping

Boulder retaining wall with stone steps via MKM Builders

i hope our boulder wall looks as good as this one above.  we are going to go take pictures of walls in town that we like to give to our contractor to ensure we get the look we want!