Trail grooming time.

[Dirty Harry]

Anybody else groom the trails they ride on???

I went out this past Wednesday & again this afternoon with an telescoping pruning saw, compound leverage branch cutters, a pair of pruning snips and a stiff rake and started grooming my riding trails for the coming year. I have a small section of trail where my unmown fields meet my woods that are dug out/rutted from so much Max riding in the past. Now when ever we get heavy rain (Spring & Fall) these trenches fill up and you can go crazy splashing & slopping all over. However, several low-hanging branches and a lot of gnarly scrub brush have encroached into the area over the past several years so that whenever you went riding you got swatted with those thin branches, which hurt like a bugger. (Like getting whipped with a switch! Remember those good old days, fellas?)

I do this trail maintenance mainly for the kids of friends & family who come out to ride, so that their riding experience is fun instead painful & unpleasant. So, even though it was raining and only 38 degrees this afternoon I went out and trimmed some more. Now pretty much everything is cut back about three feet on each side of the trail and I've pruned all the tree branches to about eight feet up. Now I'll be able to take folks out on my trails without complaints of welts from the branches.

So... am I the only anal-retentive here, or do others also clean/manicure their AATV riding domains???

[LarryW]

I do the same thing! I also pick up any sticks or branches that fall in the path. I take my 18v saw zall with a few extra batteries and a long blade with me for any tree trimming. I use to drag stuff around to keep it smooth. I think that is half the fun.

[Dirty Harry]

Glad I'm not alone in this!

I try and get onto my trails with my riding mower as soon as they are dry enough in order to mulch up all the leaves that have accumulated over the past winter & fall seasons. This is important to me because my trails also double as walking/running trails for me & my girlfriend (and our dogs, too). She'd prefer them to be a clean as a metropark jogging path but I am only going to clean so much, then it's too nit-picky - even for me. Like you, Larry, I also pick up fallen branches & twigs whenever I spot them because I've had them get picked up by sticky/muddy AATV tires and flung at my head/into my face while riding. It isn't much fun when they smack you, and it certainly isn't worth losing an eye over.

Lately I've been mulling over the idea of buying one of those drag behind trail grooming thingamajigs:

http://www.valleyvet.comct_detail.html?pgguid=6d75cc6d-d27e-4532-8ed3-2b9fe3b18e10#tabs

A small (4'x6') drag loaded down with a couple of cinder blocks, pulled behind my Rokon Trail-Breaker once a month or so would do a really nice job keeping weeds & scrub from popping up on my trails, not to mention smoothing things out after hard riding, multi-vehicle sessions. Kind of expensive, but I can sort of justify the cost if I were to use it to lightly groom my fields and to prep my garden beds, and those of friends & family as well. Hmmm... maybe I could charge a small fee for the prep work to help the thing pay for itself? Of course that would almost certainly lead to eventually buying the 3-point hitch/moldboard plow & disk harrow attachments for my Rokon, too.

[mudbug3]

The trails that I drive my Max IV on at River Run , atv park ,some times have limbs hanging over the trails after strong winds. I alway carry my 32 inch pruner for these occasions. I also know that the very next time that I drive down this trail , a hanging limb or a saw vine will snag me on the arm or face , if I don,t cut them off. I like to leave enough greenery on either side of the trail so it does,nt look too manicured. I like my trails to look a little wild and untammed and not too wide.

[Rolling_X_6]

Maybe you fellows ought to look into one of those new power graders that they are starting to advertise on TV.

DR Power Equipment - Power Driveway Grader - for dirt driveway, dirt road, and gravel driveways maintenance

They would be pretty nice for making your trails smooth . . . as long as they are not TOO rocky.

Of course . . . they aren't cheap . . .

DR Power Equipment - Power Driveway Grader - models and pricing for driveway graders

[6X6]

In my trails, in the "pit" part anyways, If I don't prune or use a lot, They'll become impassible to anyone who doesn't want to be a pricker-bush Pin-cushion. My Pruning supplies are Telescoping saw w/lopper, brush loppers, Gas hedge trimmer and chainsaw. The Tele-saw and Chainsaw are mostly used reclaiming trails I didn't use the previous year. That S#*! grows quick. As for grooming, well the "Pit" is underwater untill the beavers lower the dam, don't know why they do it, but they raise the level shortly after, and it stays up most of the year. Behind that, I'd kill that DR thing in about 25 feet, and I'm not even exaggerating If you suffer lower back problems you won't like my trails, but they are FUN!

[brushcutter]

This seems to be a never ending thing on my trails, there are ALWAYS new limbs to prune back out of the way, and it doesn't seem to matter how wide the trails are. I rarely make a trip when there is not a dead limb, or some new briars to deal with in some manner i.e. axe, machete, bushaxe, chainsaw, loppers or snipper. Just yesterday I climbed out of a creek crossing to find a dead 14" tree laying across my trail; hook the Warn #3000 to it - no challenge, and its quieter than the chainsaw. Then there's the other thing: seems that I'm always finding a new area to ride and then I'm building another trail, which I will be doing today, seems I found some cool new sloughs on the upper end of the creek bottom, so... its time to cut some brush.

BTW since we're on the topic, have any of you tried the "BEAVER BLADE"; it's a brush blade for weed whackers, it has a chainsaw chain for a cutting edge instead of the usual saw blade looking contrivance. They can be sharpened like a chainsaw and therefore have a longer service life. I have a 9" that will cut a 3" tree. You don't swing them, you just build up the revs and ease it into the tree like you would a chainsaw. Try one, I think you will like the results

[6X6]

Just yesterday I climbed out of a creek crossing to find a dead 14" tree laying across my trail; hook the Warn #3000 to it - no challenge, and its quieter than the chainsaw. Then there's the other thing: seems that I'm always finding a new area to ride and then I'm building another trail, which I will be doing today, seems I found some cool new sloughs on the upper end of the creek bottom, so... its time to cut some brush.

BTW since we're on the topic, have any of you tried the "BEAVER BLADE"; it's a brush blade for weed whackers, it has a chainsaw chain for a cutting edge instead of the usual saw blade looking contrivance. They can be sharpened like a chainsaw and therefore have a longer service life. I have a 9" that will cut a 3" tree. You don't swing them, you just build up the revs and ease it into the tree like you would a chainsaw. Try one, I think you will like the results

If you've seen the photos I posted of my back yard, you can imagine how many fresh felled trees I'll find when I hit the trails for the first time this year. My Attex has no winch and since I have a few miles of trails that you're floating basically the whole time, winching is no option. Chainsaw only (a Craftsman beater, no good saw of mine sees dirt or water, EVER) I will check out that Beaver blade. I've used the brush blades, both saw-tooth and four-point (I don't like the 4-points as a rock touch is BAD, a friend's brother got a fragment lodged into his SKULL, yes, into the bone ) but the chainsaw chain setup sounds good. I've liked the nylon swing away blades, but their for heavy weeds, not thick brush or small trees. Beaver blade,

[Dirty Harry]

Whew! Spent 3 hours this morning/afternoon finishing up the manicure of my on-property riding trails. My buddy was kind enough to loan me his chainsaw (mine's on the blink) so I could cut up a few large tree limbs that had fallen onto my trails. I could ride over them, but it shakes your brains out, so I decided to cut them and haul them away instead. Now I'm ready for the year. Hopefully I can get onto the trails in a few weeks or so with my riding mower to mulch up all the leaves and twigs. I shovel them into a poly tub trailer I tow behind my Rokon and I dump them into the watery sections of my trails. After being churned up by my tires and sitting for a few years the sloppy/rotted stuff makes FANTASTIC compost/topsoil for tilling into my garden & flower beds.

[brushcutter]

Hey guys, sorry I kinda dropped out on this one, seems like threads move so fast anymore that it's hard to keep up but I did a search and found the following:

DR Power Equipment - String Trimmer Mower - Beaver Blade for cutting brush and saplings

They come in several sizes other than the one shown here.I would say that I USUALLY buy mine at a local tractor/equipment/lawnmower dealer, but that would be incorrect. I never bought BUT one - its 10 years old and still cutting! If you can sharpen a chainsaw you can sharpen these. Keep in mind that they are for small trees and brush, and you might want to stay away from the wife's azaleas, dogwoods and fruit trees... yeah... definitely... really FAR away...