Building Roads

In order to develop our land we need to put in a fair length of road.  The main roads need to be wide enough and firm enough to accommodate fairly large vehicles such as cement trucks and well drilling trucks.  On flat land this is quite easy to do.  Generally all that is needed is a few truckloads of gravel spread appropriately.  If the soil isn't muddy you can sometimes get away without the gravel and just have dirt tracks.  On a hillside things are somewhat more involved.  For some parts of a road on a hill it is almost as easy as flat ground.  If the road can lead directly in the direction of the slope then you can just put down gravel like on flat land.  The dirt alone option is not usually viable on a hill, however, since even a little rain can make a dirt slope slippery.  On a hillside, unfortunately, only a few parts of any road are going to lead straight up the slope.  It is always necessary to traverse at an angle to the slope or parallel to the slope.  In this case you have to make a platform that is level to the left and right of the road path.  One way to do this is to cut into the hillside on the uphill side of the track and pile the excavated dirt on the downhill side.  This is a fairly quick and efficient way to build such a road.  Sometimes, it is not possible or desirable to cut into the hillside.  In forested areas you may not want to cut into the uphill side of the track if a tree is there.  The excavation would damage the tree roots and partially unearth the tree which could destabilize it.  In this case you must bring in fill dirt and build the road up at the downhill side.  This is fairly easy if the left to right slope is fairly gentle.  For a road on a steeper slope, however, you must be careful make sure that the fill is stable and won't slump away under the weight of a vehicle.  That is to say you need to make a hard shoulder on the downhill side.  A good way to do this is to build up a retaining wall of fairly large rock before adding fill dirt.  This is a bit of work but the result is a nice stable road.  Often these two techniques can be combined.  That is , you can cut into the uphill side a bit and finish to the required width with rock and dirt.  On our land we have lots of rock so the hard shoulder technique is both economical and attractive.  It is a fair amount of manual labor however since each rock has to be placed by hand.

This road was originally cut only wide enough for a tractor.  We are widening it to accommodate a well truck by building up a hard shoulder using rock fill. 

This is a close-up of that same section of road.  Each rock you see was placed there by hand.  In the background you can see where some dirt has been added to fill in the shoulder.  Later gravel will be added to the top surface.

 

The completed rock edge can be attractive with a natural look as well as functional.

In this completed section of road you can see the hard rock shoulder and the gravel surface layer.