TotalNoob
New member
I have been lurking on this sight a long time and I'm just getting around to adding anything instead of taking. I feel it will be this way every year since I spend most of my free time up at "The Place" as I've come to call it. The road to The Place isn't maintained snow free starting 3 miles short of it. Once snow reaches 18 inches at a point, Tahoe National Forest folk put a gate across the road and only tracked snow machines can access it. Yeah, I want a snow mobile! I was able to visit Dec 8&9, but it was sketchy in my 4X4 pickup so I can't/won't tow my tractor up there. So I've taken the time to put this here.
The Place=40 acres of mostly gently sloped forest at 5500'. Where there are trees, there are a few species of pine, cedar, fir, and some pitiful looking type of oak. Down at the lower, steeper elevations I also have some awesome, huge old redwoods. I love it down there! Where there are no trees, I have ACRES of Effin' manzanita. So thick one can't walk through it. I have a very rough road leading into my property but it is not my legal easement, I've been working on that. Here is the easement as I found it:
and here is after several hours of "play".
While I don't have many pictures, I spent most of my time pre-tractor clearing a space of manzanita using my truck and a chain. Here's one of my pretty wife celebrating a rather tough manzanita to pull out.
This space is to be our camp site. I spent a VERY long weekend manually clearing a trail. It was mostly old growth manzanita that was long dead and on top of that trees had grown up through it and grew together so much it was very difficult to get through. A chainsaw and a hatchet got me through. Here is an example of what I'm dealing with:
And here it is after cleaning up:
Mind you, this trail was not planned out, I just looked around to find a "lesser of the evils" path and went with it. I also try to leave any live tree (manzanita excluded). This took me over 10 hours to complete the entire trail and the kids can ride the whole thing in about 45 seconds on the quad.
I'm glad I got a tractor!
I cleared a space for a non-running RV that I towed up there. While I didn't think to take pictures, I did think to cut an escape path in case I couldn't get the tractor out once the RV was in place. Aaaand it was a good decision! I cut a beautiful, wide trail, and chipped up the brush in a total of 3 hours. I can't wait to get the opportunity to get the tractor down in the bottom and cut some trails closer to the redwoods.
Once I can get back to work, I'll be making a place to place a shipping container, making more quad trails, clearing areas just to be able to walk through and making a 200-300 yard shooting range (I'll make it as long as I can anyway). Until then, I suppose y'all can expect to see me piping in where I feel my minimal knowledge may be of some value.
Oh, and thanks for the wealth of knowledge I have already gleened from this site!
Kevin
The Place=40 acres of mostly gently sloped forest at 5500'. Where there are trees, there are a few species of pine, cedar, fir, and some pitiful looking type of oak. Down at the lower, steeper elevations I also have some awesome, huge old redwoods. I love it down there! Where there are no trees, I have ACRES of Effin' manzanita. So thick one can't walk through it. I have a very rough road leading into my property but it is not my legal easement, I've been working on that. Here is the easement as I found it:
and here is after several hours of "play".
While I don't have many pictures, I spent most of my time pre-tractor clearing a space of manzanita using my truck and a chain. Here's one of my pretty wife celebrating a rather tough manzanita to pull out.
This space is to be our camp site. I spent a VERY long weekend manually clearing a trail. It was mostly old growth manzanita that was long dead and on top of that trees had grown up through it and grew together so much it was very difficult to get through. A chainsaw and a hatchet got me through. Here is an example of what I'm dealing with:
And here it is after cleaning up:
Mind you, this trail was not planned out, I just looked around to find a "lesser of the evils" path and went with it. I also try to leave any live tree (manzanita excluded). This took me over 10 hours to complete the entire trail and the kids can ride the whole thing in about 45 seconds on the quad.
I'm glad I got a tractor!
I cleared a space for a non-running RV that I towed up there. While I didn't think to take pictures, I did think to cut an escape path in case I couldn't get the tractor out once the RV was in place. Aaaand it was a good decision! I cut a beautiful, wide trail, and chipped up the brush in a total of 3 hours. I can't wait to get the opportunity to get the tractor down in the bottom and cut some trails closer to the redwoods.
Once I can get back to work, I'll be making a place to place a shipping container, making more quad trails, clearing areas just to be able to walk through and making a 200-300 yard shooting range (I'll make it as long as I can anyway). Until then, I suppose y'all can expect to see me piping in where I feel my minimal knowledge may be of some value.
Oh, and thanks for the wealth of knowledge I have already gleened from this site!
Kevin
