Temecula, CA
September, 2025 & January, 2026
Building a net bridge over a creek and into a playstructure
Part 1 (September, 2025) - When the client for this net reached out to me, they had already had a grid of lodge poles anchored into the ground 6' apart, with the intention of somehow building a play structure between them. My job was to create a net nearby that might someday connect to the future play structure.
With that in mind, I began work on a bouncy triangle trampoline net between three live oaks and a 26 foot long bridge that crossed the creek, through the forked trunk of a sycamore and onto a net landing. The thinking was that once connected, someone could travel all the way across the creek, bounce on the trampoline then finally into the play structure.
The trampoline triangle part was straightforward, but the bridge proved to be a real challenge. Not wanting to take any chances, I crossed it 8 times with my static rope by way of a bucket gondola (as to not touch the poison oak on the sides of the creek); 4 lengths for the floor and 4 more for the side walls. Strung onto the ropes was 10 pieces of 4x4 redwood to act as the spreaders and give the bridge structure because, as I learned in England: if you don’t have any spreader, the middle of any net bridge will become very very skinny.
To raise the wood off the ground, I used two ratchets for each double perimeter of the bridge floor and alternated back and forth to pull the span tight with prusiks, locking off each pass with a backed up clove hitch on the triangle perimeter. That allowed me to slowly raise the wood pieces and then spread them into their final positions. I then wove in between, anchoring off ¼” eye bolts and eye nuts so I didn't have any gaps between net and wood.
For the bridge landing, I needed to create a way to climb up so I decided to run a double perimeter into concrete anchored rebar loops and suspend 2x4s, locked off with wire clamps. The result was something between a rope ladder and staircase.
For a complete video tour, check out a video I posted here.
Part 2 (January, 2026) - By January, the subcontractor (Justin) had built platforms for the play structure and I came back for a week to join the net with another bridge, create a connecting zig zag obstacle bridge and lay down the bones for an ambitious net ramp to the highest of the wooden platforms.
The zig zag was formed with a series of 4x4 beams, connected on each end by a hole in each that I used to run perimeter rope through, locked off with a stopper knot. Then to add a bit more stability, I ran an additional perimeter on each side of the lodge poles which helped reduce how far each vertex of the zig zag could swing. The result was surprisingly a lot of fun for how straight forward the build was!
Next up, was the bridge connecting to the net. This time around, I ditched any weaving in between the 4x4s in favor of a fully wooden board. That helped save me time and made for a more solid connection. The rigging was the exact same, albeit with only 4 perimeters since the bridge was shorter and closer to the ground. I relied on wire clamps instead of weave to lock in the beams which made the whole process faster and a lot easier to adjust if need be. The hardest part ended up being the side walls and how to create a smooth consistent arc on each side that matched which was especially difficult considering how this net was coming off two triangles which resulted in two different side wall span lengths…
The final piece of this week was to lay down the bones of the ramp to the high wooden platform. I borrowed the skills I learned from Sedona here, utilizing constrictor anchors onto the poles and eye bolts for the side walls. I only had enough time to lay down a rough sub skeleton on the slope (chaos pattern) and first passes on the floor (strips pattern) before I had to catch my flight home.
I made sure to teach the client though and he’s going to continue filling in the weave so hopefully we’ll have more pictures in the future of the completed net!
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