Building a road through swampy land?

[IHDiesel73L]

Last weekend I pushed out this path with my neighbor's 4x4 Kubota through a thicket that leads to our pond:

I had gone in with a chainsaw and cleared a lot of the brush to start, but it wasn't until I started scraping the debris off of the ground with the bucket and got in there that I realized how soft it was. It wasn't bad enough to get the tractor stuck, but it was close. The road basically traverses an area about 150' wide where water drains from my neighbor's field into the pond. The road leads to a slightly higher dry spot where I want to build a small cabin that we'll use as a place to grill, sit by the pond, fish, have bonfires, etc... I was thinking of buying a roll of geotextile fabric like this:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/6-ft-x-...ne-Non-Woven-Filter-Fabric-35-6-300/204268187

And covering the entire length of the road with it, then spreading QP and hoping that the fabric will keep it from sinking into the mud. I also thought about laying lengths of 4" PVC pipe perpendicular to the road every so often to allow water to continue to flow. I should add that this is really meant to just be a walking path and a road for the tractor to get back to the pond/cabin. It won't ever see vehicular traffic as its very far back on the property.

 

[RNeumann]

I’m not sure 4” is enough. But that’s the idea. Provide a path for the water to move, in pipe, below the road and use fabric. I have a feeling you will be adding a lot of rock to the road/path.

 

[crazyal]

I have a couple sections like that on my property. For a road I would use fabric but for a tractor/ atv/ walking trails I just collect lots of large rocks and drop them into the mud. They will sink to the bottom. Just keep adding them until you build it up high enough to get above the mud. Hopefully you have lots of rocks making it free. The few places that water runs I left the rocks a little lower than the rest. The places I put down really large rocks I put some smaller ones on top of it. After 10 years and countless frosts it's just as good now as the day I did it. Another option would be to build a corduroy road.

 

[MAX28HST]

Check this geotextile out as an option to consider. I’m on my fourth roll. Works very well.

Amazon.com: Mutual WF2 Polyethylene Woven Geotextile Fabric, 3' Length x 6' Width: Industrial & Scientific

 

[CADplans]

My loggers just build one, you need a corduroy road.

Below is a pic of the one built on my property, 104 tractor trailer loads of logs have gone over it.

They tried 3" stone like at the bottom of the pic, the stone just sunk out of sight,,,

 

[Wagtail]

My loggers just build one, you need a corduroy road.

:thumbsup:

St Helens and surrounds was a tin mining area starting 150+ years ago. The original roads built to haul the ore (via horse) were wooden 'corduroy'. They work.

A lot of the mining areas (and even abandoned towns) are no longer worked yet I have walked "ghost roads" in the upper tiers that are still wooden 'corduroy':

"Perhaps the most eerie and fascinating ghost town in the region is the old tin mining settlement of Poimena, situated on the Blue Tier, 30 kilometers north-west of St Helens, the abandoned town is surrounded by towering wooded hills splashed with colour from the foxgloves planted by Chinese miners a century ago. In its heyday in the 1880s, Poimena boasted three hotels, three shops, a school, and blacksmiths and butchers shops. The closure of nearby Mt Michael tin mine in 1928 heralded a demise of the town, and it was completely abandoned in the 1950s. Nothing at all remains of this once-thriving town except a few signs that indicate the sites of Poimena’s school, a hotel, and main street, and you can see the outlines of the foundations of several houses."

 

[PILOON]

40 years ago the property owners decided to build a road around our lake. We organized a work bee and cut trees and made us a corduroy road that was good enough to cross with the big dozer. The dozer then pushed 2 ft of decent fill onto the tree bed.
I always likened it to dozer snow shoes.
Even today that roadbed wiggles whenever a heavy truck drives on it but it has held up very well possibly because most trees were cedar.

To do it all over today I probably would have considered geotextile as an additional precaution.

Most recent carpeting is synthetic based and could also serve as geotextile base if you could source enough to do the job.
Perhaps a hotel renovation could be a source?

 

[Streetcar]

The Home Depot product is weed barrier. Use actual gepfabric or grid if you go that route

 

[IHDiesel73L]

Thanks for the suggestions. I had thought about a corduroy road-I have a lot of deadfall I could use, and a lot of is locust, which is very rot resistant. What about spreading QP over the corduroy? The corduroy would be fine for driving a tractor over, but walking over it would be a good way to twist an ankle I would guess. Actually, reading back, I think this is what PILOON said he did:

40 years ago the property owners decided to build a road around our lake. We organized a work bee and cut trees and made us a corduroy road that was good enough to cross with the big dozer. The dozer then pushed 2 ft of decent fill onto the tree bed.

 

[Otgaugres]

I agree a corduroy road is the way to go, especially if you have lots of material on site to work with. I’ve built some short stretches on my property, and they work very well. I’ve got some ambitious plans this summer a lot more. I have lots of sand available in my property, so I cover the logs after laying them in place...smoothes out the road and makes a nice surface. I’ve always heard if you cover the logs and prevent air from reaching them, they will last forever (well maybe not forever, but a long time...lol). There is a lot of content on YouTube about corduroy road. Check out Boss of the Swamp...he documents hand building some roads on his property.