Reclaiming/rebuilding old logging trail

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I've been out the past couple evenings working on a new project so I thought I'd post some pics of my progress. We have about 150ac of woods on this farm and most of it was logged about 40-50yrs ago, so there are quite a few abandoned logging roads. I've been working on clearing them out over the past few years and keep finding more. This road was about halfway up a decent size mountain and there was no access to it, aside from a small ATV trail that I blazed years ago.

This first pic shows the ATV trail (I've already pushed out some trees) and a few of the trees at the start that need to go (the three on the left and one on the right).

 

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This is my technique for pushing out trees.

Start pushing up high on the trunk, watch the ground around the base to see where the roots start to move. Take the bucket and tear out some of the roots on the front and sides of the tree. Then push a little more up high, pry some from below. Once the tree goes over I take the bucket teeth and pull all the dirt off the root ball to fill the hole. Then I engage the teeth in the root ball and lift/push it out. These trees are about the biggest I would tackle with this tractor, the conditions are good right now (soil not too dry/hard) so they came out easily. If a tree doesn't at least move a little and a few roots don't pop up with the initial push I go get the chainsaw. Not worth tearing up the tractor fighting them.

 

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Here's a couple more pics. First is of the tree out and pushed to the side, second is the area now cleaned up looking down hill from the ATV trail. More to come in a bit...

 

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The next pics are from the start of the actual logging road, this is about halfway up the mountain, roughly 3000' elevation. First pic is of a locust tree I pushed out, this is about the biggest I've ever done with this tractor, 8" DBH and about 50' tall, I don't make it a habit to take out trees this size but this one came out pretty easily. Next pic is on the old road bed. The area right in front of my tractor had been washed out so I cut out a little fill dirt and rebuilt that section. I'd also already been through and push out most of the sapplings.

 

[yooper1]

Looks like a nice fun project

thanks for sharing the photos and story

 

[LostInTheWoods]

Nice action photos. Love clearing old trails!

 

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Thanks for the replies. I don't generally have time to post up stuff like this but I thought it was interesting and may be helpful to some.

So I was going along pretty good and had gotten a few hundred yards cleaned up when I got to this mess. A pretty good size poplar right in the middle of the trail, time to get out the saw. I made the cut on the small tree but it wasn't leaning the right way and too small to wedge over. Luckily I was able to drop the big one on it and knock the whole mess down the hill. I started to flush cut the stump but my chain was marginal, so I decided to leave it. I'll bring one of my larger saws out and cut it flush in the next day or two.

 

[theboman]

Nice work, becareful! Root holes and slopes can toss ya upside down so wear a seatbelt.

I have 5 acres and there's a few old trails and I've worked on a couple to get passable, some are just a bit too steep to tractor across, so I kinda bump dirt or rocks on them as I travel across and hope one of these days it'll be passable. One trail goes to a small bottom at the foot of our place that's full of deer and I've got that pretty cleaned up, still a lot to go, but I can take my bushhog there now when it's dry.... Got a lot of shooting room there now!

 

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Nice work, becareful! Root holes and slopes can toss ya upside down so wear a seatbelt.

I have 5 acres and there's a few old trails and I've worked on a couple to get passable, some are just a bit too steep to tractor across, so I kinda bump dirt or rocks on them as I travel across and hope one of these days it'll be passable. One trail goes to a small bottom at the foot of our place that's full of deer and I've got that pretty cleaned up, still a lot to go, but I can take my bushhog there now when it's dry.... Got a lot of shooting room there now!

I hear ya on seatbelt usage, I try to work slowly and carefully on these mountainside trails. Some of them if you went off you would tumble a good ways down the mountain, not something I want to try. This trail is mostly for hauling out firewood, riding ATVs and taking our off-road toys through, but the next trail I'm going to start on sounds like the one on your property. Heads down along a creek to a bottom in the woods, lots of dear down there. I'd like to get it opened up before dear season which is quickly approaching.



I've got more pics from the upper part of the trail where I had to start building my own trail. I'll try to get those posted tonight.

 

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The next few photos are from the top part of the trail. This is where the logging trail basically ended and I'm starting to make my own trail. First pic is the area for the new trail (up and to the left) and second pic is after a little grading and cut/fill work. It's hard to see in the first pic but about 20' ahead of the tractor is a pretty good gully, about 4' wide 2' deep. I'm debating about what to do here since it's dry 95% of the time, but during heavy rains water comes through here in torrents. I think a culvert would plug up pretty quickly, leaning towards maybe just building it up with large rock (1-2' flat slab) and filling in between them with dirt. Not sure if that would hold or not, also don't want to create a 'waterfall' effect below the road that would carve out the hill. Better ideas? Thoughts?

 

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Here's a couple more pics, first pic show the area in question. It's a fun little off-camber spot in a 4x4 or ATV, but wouldn't be the best hauling out a trailer load of firewood. Second pic is looking down towards the area. It's right out of view to the left, water goes behind the berm that the tree is growing on in the left part of the pic.

 

[dex3361]

I have been doing a lot of the same kind of work on my place. I will give you a warning that You may already know. Watch out for rotting trees. when you go to push them over they snap off about 10 or 15' up and then the remaining upper part comes down like a giant battering ram and they hurt. i got hit by a small one. Just a heads up. I would hate to see a great day in the woods turn bad. Great looking work. I have made about 2 miles of ATV trails and have more planned.

 

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I have been doing a lot of the same kind of work on my place. I will give you a warning that You may already know. Watch out for rotting trees. when you go to push them over they snap off about 10 or 15' up and then the remaining upper part comes down like a giant battering ram and they hurt. i got hit by a small one. Just a heads up. I would hate to see a great day in the woods turn bad. Great looking work. I have made about 2 miles of ATV trails and have more planned.

Thanks, I try to always look up, been working in the woods long enough to know the consequences of getting complacent with your surroundings.

 

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I didn't get home very early this evening and the weather was starting to turn bad, so I didn't do a whole lot. Took my ATV and went up on the new trail and cut that stump off flush. Maybe this weekend I can start building up across the gully.

 

[Ford tractor]

One point on your tree pushing method. There can be branches from other trees held up and ready to fall on you. It's why FOPS are used in forest work.

I hope you do a 100% 360 degree inspection of the trees before pushing so we don't have to read your obit here.

 

[forgeblast]

There is a good book by the forest service on maintaing forest roads. Has some great illustrations too. I ll try to get the title when i get home tonight.

 

[Verticaltrx]

One point on your tree pushing method. There can be branches from other trees held up and ready to fall on you. It's why FOPS are used in forest work.

I hope you do a 100% 360 degree inspection of the trees before pushing so we don't have to read your obit here.

I appreciate everyone's concerns, but lets not turn this into a thread about safety.

There is a good book by the forest service on maintaing forest roads. Has some great illustrations too. I ll try to get the title when i get home tonight.

That would be great. Any info on what to do to cross that gully without a culvert would be good.

 

[forgeblast]

here is the name
A Landowner's Guide to Building Forest Access Roads
A Landowner's Guide to Building Forest Access Roads by Wiest, Richard L.
A Landowner's Guide to Building Forest Access Roads - Introduction
should be able to view it.
wonderful book.

 

[Farmerford]

That is a beautiful forest, with all the hardwoods and hills. I can see why you want to be able to ride through it. Send us more pictures when all the leaves turn.

You have poplar and locust (and rocks). What other kind of trees?

Here in middle Georgia we have a few poplar and more rocks than you might think, but sweet gum are the main plague. I spent a part of Saturday afternoon digging out an 18" sweet gum stump with a little dozer. I was too lazy to put the backhoe on, thinking the dozer would do quick work of it. By the time I dug it out I had a pit that would serve for a small fish pond.

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Good luck.

 

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here is the name
A Landowner's Guide to Building Forest Access Roads
A Landowner's Guide to Building Forest Access Roads by Wiest, Richard L.
A Landowner's Guide to Building Forest Access Roads - Introduction
should be able to view it.
wonderful book.

Excellent, thanks. Is this an actual book that one could get or just the online version? (is everything online all that's included in the book?)

That is a beautiful forest, with all the hardwoods and hills. I can see why you want to be able to ride through it. Send us more pictures when all the leaves turn.

You have poplar and locust (and rocks). What other kind of trees?

Here in middle Georgia we have a few poplar and more rocks than you might think, but sweet gum are the main plague. I spent a part of Saturday afternoon digging out an 18" sweet gum stump with a little dozer. I was too lazy to put the backhoe on, thinking the dozer would do quick work of it. By the time I dug it out I had a pit that would serve for a small fish pond.

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Good luck.

Lots of oaks, hickorys, some hemlock, lots of white pines, etc. Just your average middle Appalachian forest. I'll try to get some more pics in the upcoming days.