Steep gravel driveway

[Tinkerer]

Here is a better view.

 

[cfherrman]

You need some ditches to the sides, the water is making them for you. Widen the road to the right side of the pic and add a ditch, the ditch to the left is already made

 

[cuttin edge]

There lies the problem.... do it right, but do it cheap. To me, the road is lower than the fence line, so it needs to be built up, and if not crowned, sloped to the right. In my experience, geotec fabric is a waste of money unless you put a good lift of material over top of it. I know nothing of grid material, other than tearing it up with the grader trying to grade woods roads.. Not sure about there, but here RAP is $40 bucks a ton, and that mud will still come through it if you can't get rid of it. If it was here, I would see if they would be interested in doing it in stages, depending on their budget. One year, use sandstone, or whatever you have there for clean fill and build up the road base higher than it is in order to get rid of the mud, then next year, or later in the season, top it off with whatever. I find RAP is great, but if it gets rough, it can't be reshaped, and if it's not screened or crushed, the big pieces will move and cause future potholes. Just remember that the better the job you do on the sub grade, the less material you need for the top coat to fill in the dips.

 

[Delmer]

Remember, all we have to go on is one picture. We see mud, but if that's a one in a hundred year rain event, and that area is normally dry, then you may not need as much sub base, or as big of ditches as the rest of us are used to using, in places where the frost goes 6' on bare roads and the sub base pumps with traffic when the frost comes out.

It has to be sloped to one side, or crowned to get the water off. And the grass has to be cut lower than the surface so the water runs into the ditch instead of washing the edge of the gravel. But if the water and mud is rare, you may be fine with relatively little new crushed rock.

I'd still consider regrading the steep portion, that grade will always be an issue with washboarding, maybe even worse in dry conditions.

 

[673moto]

Forgot to add that not pictured is the ATT fiber cable all the way up the right side “ditch”... that I found literally laying on the surface of the ditch towards the top!
So ditching the right side might be out of the question

 

[HarleyHappy]

If that’s the case, do a couple of dump and runs with 1 1/2 gravel, get a good crown and a run of 3/4 mini pack.

 

[Tinkerer]

Forgot to add that not pictured is the ATT fiber cable all the way up the right side “ditch”... that I found literally laying on the surface of the ditch towards the top!
So ditching the right side might be out of the question

I watched the local TV cable provider extender their fiber optic service line about a mile in length near me.
They had plenty of room on the shoulder of for it. All of it except for the junction boxes were put in the ditch.
It makes no sense to me why they do that.
If that cable is exposed by that road, a phone call to the cable owner may get them to relocate it so you could cut a ditch.

 

[Willie B]

Forgot to add that not pictured is the ATT fiber cable all the way up the right side “ditch”... that I found literally laying on the surface of the ditch towards the top!
So ditching the right side might be out of the question

That fiber cable is not long for this world if it isn't buried deeper. Most phone companies will willingly at their expense go deeper with a ditch witch or plow. That's a good place for it but much deeper.
Alternative is build the roadbed taller to allow drainage. I had one of those roads though a shorter section. It was always wet & tended to rut with traffic. One side of the road I don't own the land. I raised the roadbed about 2' to give it some crown & ditch. now it's a good road even in wet weather.

 

[JBrady]

Everything mentioned here is good advice. Ditches, slope or crown the road, build the road up, etc. The only thing I can add to the conversation that hasn't been mentioned already is ditches do require maintenance. In the fall, leaves wind up in the ditches and clog the flow and the water ends back up on road or makes a secondary ditch. We have several areas just like this on our ranch. Several times a year, we get out the backpack blowers and clean out the ditches. A big backpack blower will clean them right out.

 

[Willie B]

Everything mentioned here is good advice. Ditches, slope or crown the road, build the road up, etc. The only thing I can add to the conversation that hasn't been mentioned already is ditches do require maintenance. In the fall, leaves wind up in the ditches and clog the flow and the water ends back up on road or makes a secondary ditch. We have several areas just like this on our ranch. Several times a year, we get out the backpack blowers and clean out the ditches. A big backpack blower will clean them right out.

I have one section of road, turns off from the road to National Forest to rise up to the upper meadow. It's uphill, probably an 8% grade. It has always been wet. Years ago, I dug out the ditches DEEP! I piled the material dug from each side in the middle. The whole excavation is probably 60 feet wide with a road 5' higher than the ditch bottom. I worried the sandy material wouldn't make much of a road base, but it has held very well. I put about two feet of "tailings", (The rock discarded when they screen winter road sand) & topped it with smaller screen tailings, they describe as 3/4 minus.

Those ditches run water every day of the year. Usually, it's a lazy stream a foot wide, 1" deep, but in heavy rain or snow melt, it runs faster. I put stumps in the bottom. Gentle water flows through the root mass, but it partially obstructs heavier flow, creating a series of little pools. This prevents erosion.

 

[MG84]

I agree with whats been posted already, I'll just add my $0.02 on what works for me. The driveway like the OP is dealing with is something I run into a lot, often I'm called in to fix "driveways" that new home builders put in which basically consist of a couple inches of #57 gravel sprinkled on mud, no drainage, compaction, base rock etc.

I agree this is dry weather work, it can be done in the wet season but it's going to take a lot more rock. Basically what I do is just ignore everything that's there and start over as if it's a new driveway. It's usually such a mess saving the existing gravel is a lost cause. Strip any vegetative material, shape the road bed with a crown and ditches and compact.

Depending on the terrain I'll put down anywhere from 4-12" of #3 or #357 (a little smaller than your fist) and top it with crusher run. I never use fabric unless it's an absolute swamp. Steep and/or firm ground gets the least base rock, low and wet get the most, same with the crusher run. Really wet ground will get a base of ESC rock which is about 4-6" size. On steep hills you want enough base rock to hold the load and no more, crusher run only enough to lock in the base rock. Never top with clean rock on steep hills, always crusher run. It has to be able to lock into the base, be compacted and form a cohesive mat.

 

[Willie B]

John David Rockefeller Jr. owned property in several states. He was a big fan of carriage roads with large teams of horses pulling big wagons. One of his homes was on Mount Desert Island in Maine. He had hundreds of miles of scenic carriage roads built. He of course had engineers. His system began with drainage. A road was shaped to the engineer's liking with cuts or fills as needed to gain functional grade. Where a fill was on side hill, excavation to a level in terms of perpendicular to the road happened first to prevent fill material sliding. Any ground not to be changed was stripped of any organic soil.
Drainage was installed where needed.
Roadbed was prepared with a specific crown, & ditches were a specific depth & width with 6" rock lining their bottom.
The travelled road surface of specified width & crown was of 6" rock a specified depth & crown. That was topped with 2" rock,
Final layer was 6" of crushed gravel 3/4-. Those roads have lasted long after their builder died. Maintenance, it appears is spot repair if a major storm washes out a spot, but that seems rare. They use a drag shaped with the correct crown to keep surface smooth.

In another time, when Federal roads were being built, another engineer named Macadam had a quicker system. He removed organic soil & laid a 10" thick layer of 1 X 1 X 2 crushed stone. Iron horse shoes & iron wagon tires are said to cause the elongated rock to wedge together.