Tamarack for bridge planks

[calb]

Is tamarack (Eastern Larch) suitable for use as bridge planking over a small waterway in my woodlot.  It will have full sun exposure so will remain relatively dry. The beams for the bridge will be treated timbers.  I am seeing quite a bit of die-off in the surrounding properties and I want to harvest/use the larger tamarack before they disappear.

[Mooseherder]

It'll be good for about 10 years. Being in the sun will make it last longer.   I have some that needs replacing on an atv bridge but it was old when I put it on a few years ago and it rarely sees sunlight.  I decked my trailer with it.  Some of it moves drying.  Use it right away.

[Stephen1]

Larch is a great outdoor softwood, hard to saw flat with so much pitch in it .

[SwampDonkey]

Grandfather, then father, always used 2" thick ash planking on a small crossing we had to get to a small field. Dad finally got a hold of some concrete ones the government tore out of a road. They've been there for 40 years now.   Ash lasts a lot longer than maple or birch. We have no white oak. Tamarack won't last any longer than spruce. But I use black spruce for fence posts all the time around the garden, it lasts quite a while. I take the posts out after summer gardening, but they just lay on top of old cedar posts when not used.

[Jeff]

That is what I'm using to plank the pond screen house floor I'm putting up. 

[SwampDonkey]

Hopefully that bear won't lug off the screening. I know they like poly tarp. Found one a couple hundred yards hauled off my lean to. And it was hauled into a part of the woods that was dark as a cave because of canopy cover.