Would you have you done?

Right now were on a job where we have to excavate water,sewer, and storm services up a 1:1 slope, thats approx 30meters high. What I did is I benched the machine(John Deere 200C) down to where I could reach the bottom, made it wide enough to swing and started excavating the trench up the hill sanding and backfilling as I work my way up. Today we got shut down, not sure why but I feel as though its because of this steep dig. Should I have done something different? What would you have done? Chris