Marston Mat

You may find Pierced Steel Planking (PSP) making up some of our trails here at Twin Rivers Wilderness, also known as Marston Mat.

These planks were used to effectively ‘pave’ a large area over difficult-to-build terrain, usually making up airfields in Alaska during WWII. They weigh about 66 lbs and are 10’ long and 15” wide and interlock in a staggered pattern, small enough to be easily deployed manually by soldiers, and mobile enough to build a full military runway over natural and even wet terrain such as found in the Aleutians and Southwest Alaska where the Japanese made their first invasion of US territory in WWII.

References:

Marston Mat. Wikipedia.