Geo-textiles > rocks-in-a-blanket

[sprucebunny]

I never used geotextiles before and really have no idea what I'm doing but this seemed like a good way to make waterbars on a soft hillside trail.



View of problem area. Too soft to drive the backhoe thru...or at least UP  :



Ditch across trail with one 6 foot wide and one 3 foot wide piece of fabric.



After center hunk of fabric has enough rocks to equal about 6 inches diameter, fold it over.



And fill with more rocks.

This firmed up the area VERY well.

Because this fabric wasn't very wide and the ground was very rough, I'm going to put another layer of 12 foot fabric and more stone over it before I try to run a 15,000 pound machine over it. I REALLY don't want to be trying to unscramble rocks and fabric and mud  :

[beenthere]

That looks good and also looks like a lot of work, and sure hope it works out well for you. How are you loading that gravel?  and from a quarry on the place? What is the "15,000 pound" machine?

Will this help you get the mill into the woods now?

Appears you are getting some fall colors int the trees there. Have you had nice weather this season? 

[sprucebunny]

Sure wish there was a quarry of some kind. Had to buy the stone and tow my little dump trailer in the 5 miles of logging road. Shoveled the first few loads into a tandem axle atv trailer that has 4000 pound rating and shoveled them out again 

A friend brought his small tractor up and loaded my trailer but I still have to shovel the stone out. This will be changing  :P

My 580K backhoe is trapped on the wrong side of this little mess and I didn't want to make it worse with further attempts to drag myself out with the hoe  :

This is used as a state snowmachine trail.

[Tom]

I've read articles of loggers using geo-textiles in a road and just driving over the material rather than putting rocks on it.  I must have a misconception.

How about putting slabs or timbers over the geo-textiles.  That might not be as permanant but it sure would be cheaper. 

[Murf]

Up around my summer place the most common way to deal with a mushy spot in a tote road is to make what is called a 'corduroy patch'.

Basically they just cut big logs, usually Hemlocks, and slice them end to end, then lay them in the road cross-wise, flat side down, then put another layer in flat side up so that the round sides interlock. Then they put a thick planks down on their flat sides tight together for few feet where each wheel track would be. The whole issue then gets spiked together.

There are some there that are 20+ years old. The gum in the Hemlock seems to be a natural preservative, they hardly rot when stuck in the ground like that.

[Paul_H]

We had a piece of road with a high wet bank that would slough(sluff) continuously on a narrow section of road.You couldn't keep a ditch on the inside because it was so saturated it would fill in,and the cut slope was near vertical and 30' high.
Frank Bauman was the geologist that worked with our Forestry consultant(he was my grade 9 teacher too but all is forgiven).Frank's plan for that section of road was much like SB's.
We widened the inside of the road as much as possible and piled large boulders against the bank to give us a wall to hold back some of the ravelling and then dug a bit of a ditch and layed out the geotextile then filled it with 2" pumice. (the second pic in the link was directly below this section of road and was the stock yard for GP Pumice,very handy at a mile away)

Great Pacific Pumice

On top of the pumice,we laid 4"  perforated Big "O" wich ran the length of the wet area(80' ) and was Tee'd off to 4, 12" metal culverts that ran under the road.The Big "O" was covered with more Pumice and then the geotextile was folded over,forming a big Burrito.

The whole thing was covered with gravel and further shored up the bank.That particular section of road dried up well and the only further action required there was throwing the odd rock that came down,off of the road.

We dubbed it the Bauman Burrito,or in Joans case,the Bunny Burrito.

The first pic in the Link is the Pumice mine to the right of the slide.We logged directly opposite the slide at Salal Creek.The mine was at around 50 kilometre and the stock yard was at 37 KM on the Lillooet FSR.

Mt Meagher

[sprucebunny]

Thanks, Paul ;D That looks like steep country to be logging in 

Well.... the bunny's got two burritos now ;D and the backhoe escaped without putting a dent in the patched up area. I like this stuff . It pays for itsself by requiring less fill for the amount of stiffness gained on the road surface.

There are several different kinds of textiles. One that I saw is heavy plastic ( 1/16 thick ) with 1+1/4 square holes. This is used for retaining walls and also looks like the stuff they put over lawns to keep them from being damaged by temporary parking. This stuff could probly be laid down and driven on , Tom.

I've made some corduroy patches with 3-5" weed trees but not attached them in any way. They work on the flat good but not on the hills. Now that I can MAKE 2X6s and things ;D , I may try harder to make corduroy work.

[SwampDonkey]

The mention of corduroy roads made me think of the ones we used to come across on the Queen Charlotte Islands. The link below shows some old corduroy roads that are common along the BC coast. Some date back to 1900 roughly. Here are some at Wickaninnish Trail, Tofino, BC.

http://www.gotofino.com/tofinohikingtrailswicktrail.html

I think there are some down in Florida also and probably many other coastal communities.

[sprucebunny]

Great pictures there, SwampDonkey, thanks .

I love board walks like those and hope to build one someday. ;D

Some of my corduroy even floated away  : 

[Murf]

"Some of my corduroy even floated away ."

"The whole issue then gets spiked together."

Yuppers, they will do that if'n they aren't stuck together well enough.

A neighbour of ours had that happen to his driveway, he didn't realize it until he drove in the lane to his deer camp late one night.

The big ole diesel pulled the front of hisd truck down into the puddin' faster'n he could get to the clutch & brake pedals. 

[SwampDonkey]

The big ole diesel pulled the front of hisd truck down into the puddin' faster'n he could get to the clutch & brake pedals. 

Oh man, I knew an old fart that would force the old Dodge into those situations no matter if you warned him or not. If his mind was made up, it was straight ahead. And usually about 4 hours later you felt like leaving the cantankerous old soul along with his truck in the mud hole. :D