Hi all, I bought 33 acres of land with access to a river. The land is steep across a shelf and I'm trying to figure out what size dozer would be best to get this job done. I've attached pictures of the land with a topo. After the road, I'm going to be building a house and some fishing cabins down by the river. I am here to moving earth, but not new to the industry, and appreciate the advice. I don't think I can afford to pay someone to cut this in and beside after hauling all your toys around for decades, I want my own... I get an itch everytime I take one off a trailer. It might turn out I do the easy parts and hire a good hand to do the steep sections so I don't kill myself. I don't know,,, just want to be safe since I'm green but not stupid. In my mind I'm thinking do a pioneer road first, then expand and widen so later a car can do this road. It all takes time I get it. When you see the pics, shout out yo ur thought on size dozer. Ritchie Bros. has a listing showing what the dozer auctions sold for. I'd be willing to pay one of you to help with a pre-buy inspection. Just like buying a heavy haul tractor, there is a lot of things that will cost thousands after a sale if you don't catch it. So is it right to think if you get an average-high use dozer from 94 earlier for 4000-8000 auction price you could plan on 20-30% to get the piece in good working order? (I used my rule for buying trucks, they all usually take 20-30% to get them road reliable from an auction) Anyone ever need help or advice on trucks, emissions, repairs, or trailers, give me a shout. Here are the images of the property. Thanks all. Kevin
No image open at this time. If it is steep you will want to go down at a angle to keep the road slope reasonable, especially if you want to take cars down later. There are some posts in the archives about building roads on steep hillsides. Use the search function in the upper right corner.
thanks ! https://photos.app.goo.gl/6WJmmURLaB91LDln2
I guess the link didn't show for the pictures. Try this. https://photos.app.goo.gl/6WJmmURLaB91LDln2
What type of material do you have there? Dirt,rock ,trees ,brush?
Kevin, I noticed that no one has replied specifically to your question regarding building a road so I'll take the liberty to point out a few things. First of all, I'm in a similar boat needing to build a trail (not a road for passenger cars) in similar terrain. But I have the advantage that I'm not limited (much) by width--I can meander all over the place if I want. I looked up your place on Google Earth (I'm about 70 miles east of there) with similar ground cover (trees, shrubs, but mostly rocks). You might have a bit of a problem.... The elevation profile shows you have a consistent slope down to the river of 33 degrees or 65% (it drops 65' in 100'). For comparison, the steepest road in the world is, according to Wikipedia) Baldwin Street in Dunedin, New Zealand. Here's how steep that is: And that's only 19 degrees or 35%! You're looking at something much, much steeper.... That's not impossible if you use switchbacks. However, the skinny section of your land is only 150' wide (as best as I can tell from the pictures you linked). You can get the slope down to a "reasonable" number (25%) by using 5 or 6 switchbacks (depending on how you count them): This does NOT account for the turns, how you cut them in, and how steep they would end up being (generally the turns on a switchback are much steeper than the segments between). The bigger issue, though, is that you will be encountering bedrock just below the surface. Consider building a road 10' wide across a 65% slope, which is basically what you are looking at with the switchbacks (since they are going downhill, steeply, the slope will be less than 65%, but I'll use that as an example anyhow). A road 10' wide would require a cut of 6 1/2 feet on the uphill side. You want the road to sit on undisturbed ground and not fill if you can at all avoid it. Certainly not with the steep, rocky hillside you are looking at. The problem is that you probably have bedrock at the surface on that hillside. Cutting even 3' is going to be an issue. Furthermore, I'm wondering where you intend on building a house and fishing cabins! Looking over the photos and topographic maps, it looks like your place near the river has a natural levee and an overflow channel. These are quite common features along rivers (especially Ozark rivers and particularly in the situation your land is--downstream of, and on the outside of a bend in the river. If you don't want to deal with water in your house, look up the 100 year flood level in that area--and double it. At a minimum. I'm not saying that what you want to do can't be done (I know folks who have done it!)--but I would strongly urge you to find an operator/contractor in your area who knows the terrain and have them look it over and give you some advice. Even if you have to pay them for their time--it would be worth it. Good luck! --Cavin'
Hi Cavin', Was out of town for the holiday, hope your Turkey Day was good. Seems we are pretty close, should probably get together for a cup of jo. Thanks for answering, the other members probably think I'm crazy. Fair assumption. First thing is getting the cut down to the skinny and the last part to the river not in the plan now. The last part of the skinny leg as I call it will be cut to the top and then use wide stairs for the last 10 yards in the first phase. The sites for housing will be back up top, where there is no issue with space and great views from the ridge. Down along the [seasonal] stream that leads to the skinny, there are places a 20x20 cabin would be easier to build... after a cut is made to get down. I've built three houses in steep terrain, learned the gotchas and what to avoid. The first road down to the skinny is the first goal. In my mind, the last phase will be the cut to the river because I don't know what equipment I will end up with. Tram tracks and a genset are a hell of a lot cheaper than switchbacks and less of an eye sore. Given the lay of the last 300 feet, it might be smarter to level the top or as far as bedrock will allow, and push back the fill towards the fat section in a lz for future work. Maybe in a couple years. I don't plan on turning it into a beach. That is where pay the experts to tell me what's what. I'm definitely going to talk to some people this week about clearing. There's an outfit in Lebanon that does mulching/clearing. Guy has a 65 gpm hydraulic diamond tooth attachment on a crawler and the videos of what they can clear was fun to watch on youtube. I'd never seen that kind of crawler mulcher clearing on larger timber. Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to make some trips the with a transit and measure 4 or 5 traverse's and get some things on paper. Cheers, Kevin
Hi BLS, on the ridge top not a lot of dirt, I'll know more when I drill the well and put in the septic and drainfield. Lots of trees and not so much brush or undergrowth. Kind of reminds me of places along route 22 in your neck of the woods. Flatter on top off the county road, then steeper down to the water. Have a good day kevin
Kevin, I really like your idea of a tram! The folks floating the Niangua would appreciate that over eye-sore switchbacks! When you get closer to something like that, check around in St. Louis for cable. I scored 700+ foot of 3/4 inch (more or less) cable for less than 50 cents a foot (I think it was closer to 20 cents per foot if memory serves). It was retired from tram service in the Arch! Turns out the company I bought it from was also doing the cables for one of the suspension bridges over the Mississippi and that the owner of the company was on the St. Louis fire dept with my dad (in the distant past--dad retired from the FD in '68)! Small world.... Anyhow, he pointed out that you can readily find such cable that's being retired with 90% of it's life left. Those forestry mowers are incredible--nothing better than leaving behind a layer of mulch! For those who aren't familiar with the Ozarks, it is essentially an eroded plain. The ridges (the left-over plains) can be mostly flat (undulating) and the valleys often have a nice flood plain. Everything else is steep. Except for some rolling hills at the headwaters of some streams (I have some of those, thank goodness!). Those headwaters with rolling hills are usually small--maybe a square mile. The whole area was forested prior to about 1860 with mainly oaks and hickories with some pine thrown in for good measure. By 1940 it was totally cut over except for some small areas of "virgin" forest (and we're talking small!). Some areas that have been regularly cut are on their third or fourth generation and are pitifully poor forests with a great deal of black jack oak and cedar (got some). Other areas that were cut only once early on are looking like virgin forests again (got some of that, too...). Mostly, though, we have rocks (chert, sandstone, and dolomite). Most Ozarkers think of "cutting in a road" as clearing a path through the trees and, after driving over it a half-dozen times, a gravel road appears! (I kid you not). So within a mile we can have deep, black soils, bare rocks on the surface, shrubs, open fields, scrub, and deep forest. If you ask "what's the land cover and ground conditions?" it's a really open-ended question! Do you mean the first 30', the middle 30', or the last 30'? Otherwise we might just answer "yep" (as in "yep, got that" and "yep, got that, too"). Another recent thread was mentioning locust, oaks, maples, and cedar groves... and I was thinking "yep"....!
Jim, way cool on the cable.... now I have to get down there. Laughing here. I agree on the junk trees, I have only counted 3 locusts with their nasty spines and a few cedars on the limestone glade. Lots of red and white oak, and hickory. k
If you are into heavy rock a dozer or excavator may not do much good. Could end up part way down slope and have to get a hammer equipped machine in which will get expensive.