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Riprap Shorelines for Park Point / Superior Bay Area

Riprap Shorelines for Park Point / Superior Bay Area

If Mother Nature has eaten your shoreline, a landscaper can’t help you.  Only a Lakeshore Guys® riprap shoreline can withstand the erosion.  We’ve breathed new life into shorelines in the Park Point / Superior Bay area.  Below are some photos of our work on a Park Point shoreline recently.
Contact Lakeshore Guys® for the toughest, best-looking riprap shoreline money can buy.

A sneak-peek at the finished product – a tough riprap shoreline that stands up to erosion:

The same finished shoreline, photographed from the other side:

We dabble in aerial photography, partly so we can capture a bird’s-eye view of our work:

Our customer’s shoreline didn’t always look like that.  Here’s a before-and-after shot:

Of course, it takes some engineering and work to go from a eroded, disheveled wreck to a DNR-approved, erosion-resistant riprap shoreline that’s easy on the eyes and completes your lakefront home.  Here are a few of the steps we take to build a riprap shoreline on Lake Superior:

We place giant sandbags along the water’s edge to protect from waves the part of your shoreline we need to grade and cover with protective fabric.  That fabric – and the slope of the land it’s on – is largely responsible for keeping your riprap stones in place.  We want to get that armor fitted perfectly, and need to stave off Mother Nature while we do.  (The local watershed department and the Department of Natural Resources loved our approach to this.)

Filling up the sandbags takes a few steps.  Sometimes we do it at a makeshift workstation, like the street-side one shown below.

Once the bags are filled with sand, we get them ready to move to the shoreline.

Now the purpose of the sandbags becomes a little clearer: we arrange them into a protective barrier to keep the waves from hitting the shoreline while we (1) backfill in some land to regain some of your lost shoreline and (2) sculpt the proper “heel” of your shoreline.

Lakeshore Guys® work well into the evening when necessary.

Now that we’ve got our Great Wall of Sandbags in place, we can begin our dirt work along the shoreline.

In the photos below, you’ll notice a line of yellow plastic in the water. That’s called a silt curtain, so called because it prevents silt from washing out into the lake while we get the dirt just right.  Silt curtains are usually required by law.

We’ve graded and groomed the heel/landward side of the shoreline, which used to be a washed-out, eroded unkempt mess.

Next, we use the sand from inside the bags to fill in the “toe” of the shoreline (where the land meets the water), before we shape, grade and compact the entire shoreline.

We install a row of large “toe boulders,” which give the leading edge of your shoreline (the “toe”) much-needed  fortification against large waves, shifting ice, and similar punishment.

Down goes the first row of protective filter-fabric.  Only one specific type will do, and securing it to terra firma is an art form.  Notice the well-groomed, gently graded ground.

We secure the filter fabric to the ground with 4-6 -inch staples.  Getting the stapling right is very tricky, and requires the patience of an oyster.

Now the 2nd row of fabric goes down, after the 1st row finally has received riprap stones.  A landscaper would have dumped rocks on your shoreline long beforehand, but our carefully engineered shorelines stand firm long after theirs have crumbled into the water.

Sure got cold late in the day!

The next morning, the shoreline looks close to final form – but we still have some finishing touches to do.

We spend the day hand tweaking hundreds of rocks before finally smoothing out the soil behind the riprap.  The proud owner of this shoreline wanted to plant sea-grass, so we put down a bed of coarse-washed sand to create the perfect planting bed.

We use a leaf-blower to blow quarry dust and tree debris and other flotsam off the riprap stones.  This helps keep your riprap clean, and will minimize the chances of weeds growing on your riprap.  Plus, it looks a little sharper.

We follow up by rinsing off the stones, for the same reasons.

Finally, you’ve got a Lakeshore Guys® Armored Shoreline.  It’s the Great Lakes version of a Great Egyptian Pyramid: a masterly-engineered stone monument that can last for generations.