Need help with Corduroy road

Craig Clayton · Jan 13, 2011

I found your project of interest ( I can only provide armchair help ). On the gravel filling idea I do not believe it will work. The reason being we have a local rail line which is abandoned and in reading into its history the first track laying was done on the narrow gauge scale. The reason being it saved GRAVEL because the line passes through land similiar to what you are trying to get across. When our fore fathers put in lines I imagine they took gravel from pits and dumped it using the rail tracks right up to the point of the swamp. I think that land could eat up 100 times the amount that you could transport in.
There are crawler tractors with LGP ( low ground pressure ) tracks and they can go on soft land. the only problem is that there is a very low demand so there are not many of them around.
Another thought is to lay in corduroy wood except on the first layer to put down the rough layer lenght wise and then lay on the better stuff as the second layer side ways.
Also if you have scrub and if it was chipped on site and dumped into the soft spot.
Craig Clayton

josephny · Jan 13, 2011

nybirdman said:
Wouldn't winter time(everthing froze)be the time to do this??

That makes perfect sense (frozen solid ground, quiet time for work so there should be help available).

Do you think the ground is solid enough to hold a big machine?

I don't think anyone would want to work in the woods all day in this weather.

Know anyone who want to go over with a big machine (it's going to hit 24 degrees today for a high -- that's painfully cold)?

josephny · Jan 13, 2011

Craig Clayton said:
I found your project of interest ( I can only provide armchair help ). On the gravel filling idea I do not believe it will work. The reason being we have a local rail line which is abandoned and in reading into its history the first track laying was done on the narrow gauge scale. The reason being it saved GRAVEL because the line passes through land similiar to what you are trying to get across. When our fore fathers put in lines I imagine they took gravel from pits and dumped it using the rail tracks right up to the point of the swamp. I think that land could eat up 100 times the amount that you could transport in.
There are crawler tractors with LGP ( low ground pressure ) tracks and they can go on soft land. the only problem is that there is a very low demand so there are not many of them around.
Another thought is to lay in corduroy wood except on the first layer to put down the rough layer lenght wise and then lay on the better stuff as the second layer side ways.
Also if you have scrub and if it was chipped on site and dumped into the soft spot.
Craig Clayton

I did read in another thread about a guy who put down truck loads of gravel and it just disappeared into the wet ground.

The conclusion there was to make a corduroy road, which led me to my position.

I hadn't heard of putting down trees in the direction of the path as a first layer, and then another layer on top of that across the path. That seems like a better idea that simply 2 layers across the path (if 2 layers are needed).

I was wondering if I'd need a layer of gravel on top of the corduroy road, either to make it flatter (more easily traversed) or because the corduroy wood would sink. For example, if the wood sinks a few inches and then stay put, then gravel on top of that should fill that in and stay where I put it. Of course, I could be all wrong about this.

nybirdman · Jan 13, 2011

Winter time is prime time for logging,roads froze,no bugs,leaves off.Round up a crew,build a fire ,put on a good feed.Should be able to do that 300ft. in two days.I like the idea of two layers of logs,should work.Tracor with a grapple or thumb would make work a lot easier.

josephny · Jan 13, 2011

nybirdman said:
Winter time is prime time for logging,roads froze,no bugs,leaves off.Round up a crew,build a fire ,put on a good feed.Should be able to do that 300ft. in two days.I like the idea of two layers of logs,should work.Tracor with a grapple or thumb would make work a lot easier.

It does sound like a brilliant plan.

Would need to level and widen out the remaining 150' and lay down the road on the full 300'.

Being 100 miles away, I don't think I could pull this off. But oh boy do I want to.

slowzuki · Jan 13, 2011

Get geo fabric, roll out, put gravel on top. How thick the gravel needs to be is based on the load.

Having an ATV with 4wd, and oversized tires, I'm surprised it can't go through? Mine can drive over stuff I can't walk through, especially if there is a vegatation mat.

We have some corduroy roads here through swamps. They plain suck when they get old. Traffic will work gravel down through. Once the logs are bursting out, you get stuck in mud holes full of logs.

slowzuki · Jan 13, 2011

On my own property, I log the swamps in winter. The road progresses the length of winch cable each day. Dragging trees via the road packs the snow and lets the swamp freeze so you can wander onto the next patch.

Optionally a snowmobile can beat down a path and let it freeze up.

dave1949 · Jan 13, 2011

I think you are on the right idea with the length-wise logs. That's how loggers here bridge over wet spots for their skidders if they are working a wet area outside of winter time - which is frowned upon.

They don't have to be big diameter, less than 6" will do, and if they go down in the wet mud, will take a long, long time to rot. If you have beech bark disease in your woods, I would use the young beech. It shouldn't take much to keep an ATV out of the ground. You might get by with only length wise saplings and not need the cross pieces. Definitely easier to use long saplings than short cross pieces.

I think the gravel will disappear without geotextile and a base of large (> 8") rocks below it. It would be a very slow process too and has the smell of a shovel about it :laughing:.

Dave.

wetstuff · Jan 13, 2011

Forget gravel... 'Ell, I have conventional local soil (loamy-sand) and it took about 5yrs of making a base before the holes were bridged.

Find yourself a copy of Eric Sloan's, Diary of an Early American Boy. If I remember they had a section within the year (1805) where they built such a road. (I had not heard that term in years!)

Local loggers make mats of 2x6, rough sawn hardwood to lay in the soft spots when they run their skidders into the woods, but they come up to move to the next jobsite. Good luck to you.

Jim

.... 'just checked: used copies of this book on Amazon are as low as 1cent. ...shipping may be $3-4. Sloan has done some wonderful books if you like old tools and learning how people -who perhaps had a bull named John Deere- got along as we are doing here.