trail clearing technique and tools

[ArlyA]

Clearing a NFS trail on Lake Ste Kathryn in the Ottawa NF in the upper peninsula of MI. The spruce bud worms make for regular work here.

Now all better!

Before

And after. All saw tools all carried in the DAKINE Builder 40L backpack you see here which is a darn good pack.

More pics to follow.

 

[ArlyA]

Culvert clean out and trimming branches to allow for a better view on the swamp.. And why do we using pole saws for 95% of our work on trails??

 

[Fixastuff]

Cool stuff! I love building trails, one of the reasons I bought a mini excavator.

 

[ArlyA]

Cool stuff! I love building trails, one of the reasons I bought a mini excavator.

Thanks fixstuff. We do many, many hours at clearing trails eash summer in the National Forest and we've been trained to do that. We've also done and been trained to do mountian bike trails, ski trails and what you see here is hiking ones. What trails do you do??

 

[ArlyA]

I should add that it's tick season up here and all the pants and shirts we are wearing in these photos have been sprayed with Permethrin insect and tick repellent chemical. It works!

 

[ArlyA]

More trail clearing photos taken over the weekend.

 

[ArlyA]

Is anyone out there doing trail work?? Or have any questions concerning that?

 

[kenmbz]

I am working on trails on my property.
In the knock down and brush clearing phase.

Once I have that done was thinking of using a flail to keep it clear?

Will end up with maybe a 1/2 mile of new trail joining to some currently grass fields.

Using Brush cutter with scratch blade a pole saw to get it to the point where I can haul out the huge dead ash trees I need to fell as they are already dropping branches, and some are falling down on other trees I want to keep.

Any advice on low spots for drainage , mostly on a slope but a few areas that stay wet for a week or so after heavy rain?

 

[ArlyA]

Since most trails do not need to be straight, we go around wet spots. In fact straight trails are not recommend, due to the boring factor. Can you get around low spots?

 

[kenmbz]

The wet areas are pretty wide. I think I will eventually have to bite the bullet and build up high areas through them, making sure not to interfere too much with water movement down hill.