Cutting side hill trails

[Egon]

Top or bottom the equipment size makes a difference.

 

[walter boatwright]

If have not cut your hill down yet. Consider borrowing or buying a single or 2 bottom moldboard plow. It will make some time out of moving soil .

 

[pat32rf]

Agreed but I find it much easier (not safer) to cut and move the cut dirt to the downhill side if working from top/down.

What good is easy when one rear wheel is sliding off the edge of the trail whenever you try to back up to move over onto the trail?
While working uphill I can use the bucket to drag soil from the high ground to low side as well. I have directional tires (R4s) that work a LOT better going forwards (even with chains) so I try not to need to back uphill unless I have my winch on the 3pth.

 

[Egon]

What good is easy when one rear wheel is sliding off the edge of the trail whenever you try to back up to move over onto the trail?
While working uphill I can use the bucket to drag soil from the high ground to low side as well. I have directional tires (R4s) that work a LOT better going forwards (even with chains) so I try not to need to back uphill unless I have my winch on the 3pth.

Kinda depends on how the tractor operator works it. Downhill the rear wheels should be nowhere near the edge. You gotta keep the trail flat horizontally and wider than the tractor. Pushing downhill also lets one move more dirt per push.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

What good is easy when one rear wheel is sliding off the edge of the trail whenever you try to back up to move over onto the trail?
While working uphill I can use the bucket to drag soil from the high ground to low side as well. I have directional tires (R4s) that work a LOT better going forwards (even with chains) so I try not to need to back uphill unless I have my winch on the 3pth.

If you are trying to drag dirt with the FEL from high side to low side, that automatically puts your tractor off the side of the trail. You can push all day long from high to low and keep all 4 wheels on the new trail and use the FEL overhang to your advantage. As just said by Egon, once you have the trail level side-to-side at the start, keep it that way and stay working from that part of the trail.

While I've never operated a dozer, I'm pretty sure when cutting a new side hill trail/road they always work top down if they have the choice.

 

[crazyal]

If using a dozer you would angle the blade so that it pushes the dirt to the low side of the hill while tilting the blade to dig dirt out of the high side. I always work from the top down but it's because it's easier to push and tracks will back up almost anything. Doing it with a tractor, depending on how steep it is I think I would do it with a back blade going from the top down taking small bites each time. But that kind of depends on if I could turn so I'm headed directly down the hill if needed and if the tractor was stable enough to transverse the hill safely. Otherwise I would do it from the bottom by backing up the hill a short ways, lower the blade and cut into the bank, and then pull it down. It would be slow but once you got enough of the trail done you could turn around and use the loader with a tooth bar (you just need the rear tires to be close to level).

 

[pat32rf]

Guess I'm just used to building trails that are too steep to go up in reverse....

 

[dragoneggs]

Guess I'm just used to building trails that are too steep to go up in reverse....

Ha ha... but actually me too. Not that I have a lot of experience but my property is steep. Learning on tough terrain.

 

[Egon]

Ha ha... but actually me too. Not that I have a lot of experience but my property is steep. Learning on tough terrain.

When it gets real steep think tracked equipment.

When building if it's to steep to back up will you have a one way trail when done?