I'd love to have some of that equipment, but just can't justify owning it myself (there is a limit on how much unjustifiable equipment my other half will let me make off with. She gave me no guff on the forwarding trailer - in fact encouraged it. So I'm letting any new acquisitions rest for a while.)
When we put in 3500 feet of new trail and a new +/-100 ft diameter log landing at Little Hogback Community Forest (a conserved, working forest I own jointly with 15 other area families) a few of us did all the clearing ourselves. We flagged the route with the help of our forester, trying to keep the grade below about 7% (which allows us to use broad-based dips, rather than waterbars for erosion control). We dropped the trees, and I hauled out everything we could reach with my tractor and winch or forwarding trailer. Then we called in a guy with a large excavator and dozer to de-stump and put in the finish grade. It was either that or rent equipment, but we just did not have the time to put in for that ourselves (plus the pro did is in a fraction of the time it would have taken us.) I think I posted a couple of videos of walking the trail before and after the work on here somewhere.
