350 foot Corduroy Road 1 1/2 years (so far)

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Its coming along well and right on schedule I guess. Equipment used-

1996 Arctic Cat Bearcat 550 liquid snowmobile with log towing chains
1980-ish B6100DP KUBOTA tractor
2019 Home made log arch
2007 KUBOTA B26 with Hoe (just installed hydraulic thumb)
1983 Honda ATC200E (just got up and running w brakes, bearings etc)
2020 Muts Trailer (just assembled and ready to go)
1982 CT110 Honda dual range motorcycle
2002 Ford Ranger 3.0
1973 10 foot tilt deck trailer, single axle

Pickup and tilt deck trailer stay on the Hwy everything else is in the woods with me

 

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As found, heres what I started with

 

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Trying to find the straightest line across. I have 50 feet width to stay inside of.
Hummock is raised mounds of earth found in Muskeg. There will always be Tierra firma somewhere underneath all woody vegetation. I created my road connecting these characteristics together in the straightest line possible. I took pics of the area at different times of the year.

 

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Third pic was day one January 3rd 2019. What you see in front of the snow machine in pic three is the direction of the road just immediately prior to beginning.

 

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I layed sticks in a line with what was there and made the basic path. Using pics from the previous fall with less snow for reference helped tremendously. My first day I went through the ice 4 times. It took 3 1/2 hours to get my pants and boots off that night completely frozen solid

 

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Geogrid underneath. And think of the corduroy road as an upside down railroad track with the rails on the bottom and the ties on top. The rails are the stringers and the logs on top are the ties

 

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Making progress. Blazing trail and logging at the same time

 

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The desk where I send my faxes from. That is a lake right there and my access is on the drainage end of it. Corduroy roads breathe water with very little obstruction to water flow unlike culverts. And there will be bridges as well. Whenever possible use a bridge instead of a culvert.
That Bearcat is one bada$$ sob let me tell you. Some of those logs are close to 1000 lbs

 

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I stopped, created a bit of distance, then started building again wherever water channels were present. I didn’t try to divert the water just worked with it not against it. I made the road perpendicular to the channels to simplify any bridging in the future for when I get to that phase. This is all done in phases as represented in all the pics of my work. Remember thus far in my post was built on 4’- 6’ snow plus drifts in the middle of winter going by memory and pics and landmarks etc. as I went.

 

[Topzide]

Quite the engineering to figure out! I'll again on working with the water and not against it! The force of water moves mountains! The views sure are worth the effort. Toys (I mean tools), sure do help make things a bit easier. Keep up posted on the progress and work smartly!