I hear you on facing the machine down hill, it's my favorite way to run. You're right on with your technique of splitting your tracks and doubling the last pass. right now we are running out of room in this cell so we're doing every thing at a 3 to1 hence why i have to make my first two passes cross ways. my first pass is really a controlled slide. Although the 836 is big it has a surprisingly low center of gravity. Between the food waste and the 6 loads of industrial sludge [thank god for construction debris and coated paper] I get over the course of every morning I'd never be able to move once I got to the bottom if I went down hill first. as it is most the time I've got to put a set of wheels on the dirt next to my face in order to get back up to the top so I can do it again. once we get in our new cell i'm going to try your way with the windrows right now we are so small i always have garbage coming at me. Boy think of the money a guy could make if you could come up with a way to process matresses. How do you guys cover at night? We use dirt on our outside edges and the perimeter of the face, then we use 100'x100' tarps that we pull with dozers. They're made out of the same fabric as you would use when filling an under cut with stone they are 10, 10 x 100 panels sewn together. they work good when there is no wind but they sail when the wind gets much over 10 mph which is more often than not between our elevation and our proximity to lake michigan. They are a huge pain but they save a ton time at the end of our day and air space by not using all dirt. plus when we do get rain it's a lot easier to move the next day when I don;t have to bridge mud.