ericm979
Super Member
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2016
- Messages
- 5,804
- Location
- Santa Cruz Mountains CA, Southern OR
- Tractor
- Branson 3725H Deere 5105
How wide do you want to make these trails/roads? Are they for ATVs or trucks or something else?
Keep in mind with a tractor and BH (or a TLB) the outside stabilizer needs to be on ground that's solid enough to take some weigh. If you're making the road by pulling from the uphill and piling it on the downhill, the downhill/outside will be loose and unstable until it's been packed down. So you'll need to make the road wider than the outside width of the stabilizer pads. A tracked excavator won't have that problem, and it's probably narrower as well.
Another consideration is erosion. You want to make the roads so they won't cause erosion problems, both so they don't wash out and also so you're not damaging your land, clogging streams, etc. Someone with a lot of experience building roads in your area (and thus familiar with your soils) should be able to design roads that minimize erosion.
Keep in mind with a tractor and BH (or a TLB) the outside stabilizer needs to be on ground that's solid enough to take some weigh. If you're making the road by pulling from the uphill and piling it on the downhill, the downhill/outside will be loose and unstable until it's been packed down. So you'll need to make the road wider than the outside width of the stabilizer pads. A tracked excavator won't have that problem, and it's probably narrower as well.
Another consideration is erosion. You want to make the roads so they won't cause erosion problems, both so they don't wash out and also so you're not damaging your land, clogging streams, etc. Someone with a lot of experience building roads in your area (and thus familiar with your soils) should be able to design roads that minimize erosion.