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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
Iowa, all good points. The conversation went sort of like this:
"I know ypou're looking for work, you a hunter?"
"No. Why?" (read: uh-oh-- somethin' for nuthin')
"My buddy and I have 100 acres that needs ATV trails. Can you do it"
"Yup"
Dat's all I know at this time 
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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
Ok EW, at least i hope we gave you some points to ponder/consider. I'd love to have more property to make an ATV trail. Making the trail is half the fun.
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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
On our hunting property the trails are all built up and diked for drainage. I'd run the trails the easiest way possible cutting the least. Cut the trees flush in the area of the path and come in with a dozer and tilt the blade building the area up for good drainage. Otherwise in no time your ripping up the trails if it gets wet.
Snaking the trail gives you lots more distance. I'd get bored just driving over 100 acres in no time. You will also scare all the critters out with all the noise.
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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
Yooper you are spoiled.. .
I do atving in UP.//Norway/.
Joe
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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
You must take out the stumps - they will rot and leave holes anyway- fairly quickly as the are pines. Also nothing will damage an ATV or rider- as hitting a stump. You must cover you liabilities. Rent a tracked excavator with a thumb, bigger than you think you need, and a D8 sized dozer. You will need it. Pile everything up, and bring in a tub grinder, or better yet hire a guy with one. Lay a bed of what we call here packing gravel or bank run gravel over the trails. Include hills and jumps etc.. Some stumps and trees can be coverd to build the jumps and hills- Snake the trails but include some straight runs. Spread you grinded debris over the trails. This will help keep them in good shape for a while, but not forever.
This is much more work than most relize. I often am called in to finish up for someone who got in over his head. Here in Southern NJ, its $5000.00 a day for the tub grinder and a crew with an excavator and off road dump truck to transport the trees and stumps to the grinder and load and operate it. The cost is worth it, as it goes very quickly. Figure 260.00 a day for your machine, plus your daily salary rate. Include your rental and fuel costs and hire a ground guy to use the chain saw to come up with a weekly rate. The ground guy will cut the stumps off the trees after you dig them and hold the tree with the thumb for him. While you dig the next tree he cuts the previous tree into tub grinder size lengths- usually 8-10 feet, Diamaeter is no concern. Contract by the week- you can get a lot done in a week- and can procede as the owner has the funds. Bring in the grinder only when you are completely finished. Seperate all hard woods and sell them for fire wood. A more informal trail system can be made by just letting the ATV's ride the property and picking the natural paths. Trails will soon develope on there own. Then you can finish them up.
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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
dajustin: Sounds like you have experience, eh? So you wanna be the (volunteer) "chainsaw guy"?
$260 a day cost for my machine. I take it you own a machine too? Lemme do the math and see how that shakes out:
This is my third one. Mine's new and I've got $47,000 just in it. A set of special, genuine-OEM tires costs $2000 only from the dealer. I'm on my third set. A hydraulic filter is nearly $50, air filter set is about $70.
My cost to operate per hour is more than $43 per hour [based on old 1999 Caterpillar published data] inc. $9 an hour just for fuel so that's $344 a day---and that's not including MY pay. Plus my truck, trailer, $5000 a year insurance, $600 license plates per year, et al---and let's not talk about "Aunt IRS". Oh yeah, and the truck with 65,000 miles is on its 3rd set of $1000 tires. Before I even step foot on his property I will have invested over $100,000. (man, seeing this on print looks even WORSE than I thought  )
That said, my daily rate has to be $600-$1000 and up (depending on what or who it's for) for one machine and an operator---me. I have guys with their own equipment who want to work for me and they either want $100 an hour from me---or worse (read: greedy) they want HALF the gross proceeds from the job! (Ummm-they aren't working)
And a D8 with a 14' blade? errr? Have you SEEN a D8? It'd be a bull in a china shop. This is Mississippi---as in liquid chocolate-milk-mud below the 18" crust (and that's putting it nicely). One 90-degree turn and it will literally screw itself into the ground. I've seen it happen to 60,000lb. excavators. Anything heavy that can float and get traction across the crust can run---straight, no turns--across the crust once. Twice, you drop about 3-6 inches. The third time, you are a foot deep. There is no fourth trip.
This ain't land clearin' or strip minin' --I'm putting in an ATV trail, so 6'-8' wide is plenty. Even a D3 or 4 is too big.
So Justin when ya' available?? Saw's a runnin'
But I'm jis' sayin'
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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
If you wanted to clear the entire 100 acres, fence line to fence line, he's on the right track.
Provided the owner was last months PowerBall winner, and the excavator and D8 have 4' wide tracks.
Short of that, a couple strong backs and a Brush Brute for you FEL and you'd be off to the races.
Been there, done that, the t-shirt didn't fit too well, but I still have it, and I'll throw it in..... 
Best of luck.
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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
Just out of high school I got a job with a road gang. They must have been really hard up for help, about the second week on the job the boss put me on a D8 cable dozer, probably a late 40's model, I don't kmow when they got hydraulics but this old moose had the arm that came over your shoulder to run the winch to lift the blade. That thing was BIG and CLUMBSY, but it would push just about anything you put the blade against. At 18 I was on top of the world driving that old noisy dusty thing. I have no idea what they weigh, but I sure would'nt want it stuck in a swamp. Frank.
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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
And to think I thought an ATV was an All Terrain Vehicle.
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100-acres with ATV trails--best way to do on 3rd growth forest
I have found that following the path of least resistance worked best for me. I have a very extensive ATV train system on our properties and have it best to just use the ATV's to push down the vegetation that is least developed and once down, the repeated trips over the trail tends to keep the vegetation down and the trail open. One of my hunt clubs used a tracked skid steer to open up some trails on a clear cut area that had grown up that worked out pretty good but once in the woods the vegetation is not that bad and the ATV can push things down OK. If I need to cut some sapplings that are a pain in the neck out of the way, I just bring a pair of loping shears and cut the sappling small enough to cut with the shears and bigger stuff I use a Stihl FS450K with a chisen tooth saw blade. Anything larger requires a chainsaw. I have a Stihl MS 192T that is real handy and small enough to put in the box on back of the ATV or just strap down. I am thinking that bring in heavy equipment into the forest is more likely to tear up more timber than the ATV trail is worth.
Something else to consider is that if you make the ATV trail too nice.........that is tantamount to ringing the dinner bell for every ATV rider and trespasser to come and enjoy your newly built trails.
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01-15-2007, 17:39 
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