Looking for ideas for a steep grade rock mover.

[Rio_Grande]

We are building a road on our farm. The middle leg of the road is very steep and although it will be passable by the jeep when completed it will never be the kind of road you want to haul a trailer of rock on due to the grade.

I am trying to come up with an idea to move rock from this middle section to the ends. I have a ctl70 tracked skid loader that can operate on the road without too much trouble if it is dry. I was contemplating building a hitch for it but everything I can imagine looks like an anchor on an otherwise smooth belly. We have other equiptment available just nothing other than the skid steer I. Trust my life with.

Right now I am hauling a loader bucket at a time. As you can imagine that eats up a lot of time.

 

[BukitCase]

Have you considered adding a switchback, or will you always have a jeep? Sounds like a seasonal nightmare to me.

Also, would you be bringing the rock UP the grade, or DOWN it (which end is your homesite, up or down?)

 

[Rio_Grande]

It's this bad with a switchback. I am going to lower the grade this fall and hope to make it more navigable, but there will always be a tight turn at the bottom of both hills. Ya I will always have some sort of jeep.

Hauling the rock up hill in both directions.

 

[Rio_Grande]

These are not very good pix and leaves on the road make it look like a cow path which it ain't much better than, but first one is looking down into the creek second one is up at the switch back. I intend to widen the switch back maybe add a retaining wall there and in the first pic work my way down the hill to the left of the current road.

The road into the creek was actually where the skid steer lost traction and slid over the hill. I cleaned it out coming back up and put a curb on the outside to keep from sliding off and dropping 30 feet into the creek bed.

 

[ace10]

I don't think you'd want to pull a load low on the rear of a skidsteer. Maybe you're talking about designing a hitch for the front, and operating in reverse?


EDIT:

I just looked up the specs on your machine. It's a big one.

9500lb operating weight, and 3000lb operating load. So you're carrying at least a cubic yard on each run. I'd kill for that capacity on my skidder.

 

[oosik]

I would guess you could pull a small trailer load of rock on that road with a long tracked vehicle. That road could tend to get your pucker up after a rain. Although, if you lost it with your tracked skid steer ...... man, that picture on the right, I'd be nervous as a cat passing razor blades navigating that with something like a tracked dozer. It may be worth your while now to level it out somewhat so you can pull a small trailer with the skid steer.

 

[Rio_Grande]

We love it ace. It will lift almost 6000 lb at the pins. I have a 6 foot rock bucket on it. Is lid over that hill bone dry, was prying roots out and bounced really hard. Started over it backwards but managed to spin it to go down forward. If it wouldn't been for a few trees I could have gone into the creek bed. It scared the crap out of me.

I intend to level the road out for sure. I need to rent a tilt tach for that section as I can't come come at from a different direction to set the grade. Will see, I have at least 2 other spots like that and I still have to go up the other hill. When the ground is wet you can't climb that hill in the first pic on a quad. That's the kind of stuff I want to fix.

 

[Rio_Grande]

This is my machine. I can put a hitch on the back and have a 5x8 dump trailer that will haul about 4 bucket loads. I fill it and get as coup as you can't navigate the switchback without a scoop along.

 

[lt190b]

Rio-Grande, if you have a bobcat dealer, or rental yard near by, they may have a 2 wheel dump cart that mounts to your mount plate. I don't recall the volume it holds. I used one to transport red sandy material around a baseball field. lt190b

 

[Rio_Grande]

Lt190

I looked that up, quite a setup there.