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Best equipment for leveling paths after tornado timbering?

DPForumDog

Active Member
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Sep 15, 2013
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43
Location
Alabama
Our large acreage was hit by a tornado 4 years ago. There was a lot of damage by the Tornado and the loggers/ timber crews that came in later. Right now we are trying to reclaim our old riding paths but they are so rutted and uneven. What is the best equipment to smooth level the paths?

We have a large Ford backhoe and a JD excavator, several tractor and attachments. Our skidsteer is regular flow. Would a hi-flow skidsteer give us more attachment options?

Our ground in flatwoods clay. We have lots of skidder ruts and lots of rootball holes. Currently we are using the excavator to bury many of the large rootballs and we can get that pretty smooth.
I was wondering what piece of equipments are good for smoothing and leveling paths and road so that it is more pleasurable to ride 4 wheelers and polaris ATV UTV?
Thanks
Granny DP
DPForumDog
 

skyking1

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washington
When you're following up a logging operation that left stump holes, the tendency is to end up with a road that is somewhat of a ditch. It takes a little bit of effort, but get someone who knows how to pull the material up cut some ditches and leave you with a crowned dry trail.
Otherwise every year it's going to rut out something fierce during the wet season.
 

NH575E

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I too think a dozier is your best bet.

Burying those root balls might come back to haunt you depending on where you bury them. Hopefully you aren't putting them where you want a trail
 

T-town

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NE PA
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retired !
x2 on the 'root balls'.
A drainage plan needs to thought out. Where does the water go... and how can you help it get there. Excavator will get that digging job done.
Agreed that you need your trails to be as 'high and dry' as you can get them.
I'm sure a dozer is the 'tool of choice' for roads/paths.... that said... I put in a darn good driveway with just the backhoe loader.. and with the fill needed being on site. Able to move the material from where it was dug to where it was needed and using a full loader bucket was able to level out the fill.
Always options......
 

Tinkerer

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The shore of the illinois river USA
I have buried root balls (stumps). Only because I was short on fill dirt to fill the holes after digging them up n burning them. Biggest root balls were about 7 or 8 feet in diameter.
The buried ones "came back to haunt me " two different ways. The dirt always settles around them and when they rot a depression starts and gets worse every year. Depending on the size of the stump.
I learned the hard way. No more burying them. Digm up n burn them and fill the holes with compacted dirt.
 

skyking1

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I try to warn people off of burying anything, because Murphy will have you digging through there much sooner than later. Even when you have seemingly ample room on a property, your choice of dumpsite is never quite right.
 

keif

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Mar 8, 2020
Messages
116
Location
USA
I do some mountain bike trail building and the books on that say to dig down to mineral dirt. A trail that is lower but down to good soil will hold up better than a higher trail made on black soil. An excavator is usually the tool of choice for building them.
 

keif

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Mar 8, 2020
Messages
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Location
USA
It is not so simple, digging down through the black to the hard stuff is also creating ditches. I would prefer not riding in ditches.
And a trail on black dirt sucks. I have miles of trails and the ones dug down to mineral soil I've made with the excavator are much better in both the wet and dry seasons than my old school ones made on the the top surface.
 

Delmer

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WI
Some of us want you to build an interstate through the woods I guess. You asked about leveling the holes and ruts to make it more fun to ride on. To me, that means you want to loosen the soil enough to be able to grade it, then put enough weight over it to compact it enough that it won't turn to slop and rut out again just from the atv traffic. I would use a tractor and small quack digger, or chisel plow, or field cultivator etc. to loosen the trail, then a disc or drag to break it up a little more if needed, probably after it's dried a little, but not too much, then grade it with whatever you have available, a three point blade, a grader drag, a bunch of used tires tied together. Then compact with your heaviest tractor, probably the backhoe if it won't make more ruts. Fill the big holes first.
 

CM1995

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Alabama
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Running what I brung and taking what I win
A couple of questions -

What is your timeline? Assuming this can be done when ever you have time?
What is your budget?
How many trails do you want to grade and how long are they?

IMOP you have an excavator (don't know what size), a skid steer and a tractor. Those three pieces of iron can create subdivision ready roads with enough time and skill behind the sticks and wheels.

Now I'm not advocating burying any clearing debris for the simple reason Sky King noted - it'll come back to haunt you in the future. Not necessarily in the rotting and settling part as wherever you bury that debris is where you will want to build something in the future.

If stumps and logs are buried deep enough they do not rot quickly. We've dug up popular logs buried 15' deep for over 30 years that still had the bark on them. If no oxygen can get to the wood it doesn't rot.

This was a chicken shack we did back in 2012. The site had a building that housed a bank and a dry cleaners dating from the mid '80's. Prior to that it was a U-Totem gas station I remember stopping at as a young'un.

Buried deep and not rotten yet but still costing money.;)

IMG_0733.jpeg
 

skyking1

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I worked a housing development in the Orting valley a long while back. 500 years ago the Electron Mudflow off Mount Rainier surged through that area at least as far as Sumner, picking up all sorts of large trees along the way. If you already had road paved over one of those logs you left it. I had to carve a slot through a 4' cedar log that had been in the mud for 500 years, and it smelled like new cedar. I was digging the co-trenches behind the curb for the utilities, and the top foot of log was in the trench. No oxygen, no rot as noted above.
 

NH575E

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You might get away with buried cedar. I've seen pine stumps rot out a hole you could lose a Volkswagen in.
 

KSSS

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Feb 27, 2005
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Idaho
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excavation
The composition of the trail I assume was fine before it was logged, combine that with the fact this is for ATVs, and no one is landing airplane on the trail. I would not get carried away. There is never enough info on these types of questions to really form the best response. That said, I have a Bobcat grader attachment that I would hook that up to my CTL and use the existing material on top. They are made for projects like this, you crown the trail, dig cut drainage on the side of the trail if you like. I would repair the trail with that. I would pass on the dozer, especially if you don't have experience running one.

https://www.constructionequipment.com/bobcat-grader-attachment
 
Last edited:

Spud_Monkey

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Your six
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Decommissioned
Yes please crown the trail/road anywhere one builds a rock/dirt road. We got us a city slicker out here that plays on the weekends that owns a $50k Kiota tractor that came with all the trimmings and thinks he is master at fixing the road. Yeah that's going to take time and money from my end to fix if I wanted to what he scraped flat and now has canyons forming from erosion. I would do it but I don't want to help the worthless neighbors who might benefit from it and never give back.
 

skyking1

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washington
I knew you were not making ditches :D
That is what I do, the big trick is to keep the runs short enough and kick some thank-you-mams and send the water off trail before it turns trail into a creek. That is depressing when your trail tears up the whole hillside.
 
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