Professional Trail Building

After designing and building trails on a volunteer level for over a decade, and as word got out about how fun and well built these trails are, I started receiving inquires about doing it on a professional level.  Your desired trail can benefit from the years of experience building trails including some in the BLM's top 20 rated national trail system.  Popular trail routes have been designed and built on both public land (BLM and USFS) and private land.  Here are some of the services offered to make your trail project successful.

• Use of micro trail construction equipment by an experienced trail builder creates a route that typically looks like home grown singletrack over time while remaining within a budget.
• A skilled operator can work around natural features and incorporate them into the build to maintain a nice flowing and natural looking trail and not a boring straight path.  Building a hard surface path is a significantly different skill-set than building a flowy singletrack trail.
• Equipment can be used to easily create subtle drainage features that are instrumental in avoiding erosion issues and minimize maintenance down the road. Building properly sized drainage features by hand requires far greater time and effort than with equipment.  
• Building rideable switchbacks is a significant undertaking when done by hand and encountering a large rock could end progress forcing a start-over.  The right equipment can save significant time and effort building switchbacks saving money.
• Building large bench cuts are challenging and time consuming by hand and often result in trails that are way to skinny and have an undesirable outslope with the critical edge deteriorating over time.  This is where equipment shines and produces excellent results much faster and cheaper.
• There are obviously situations where equipment is not the best method.  Where equipment access to a worksite is not possible or cost prohibitive, there are safety concerns or the advantages equipment offers is not necessary.  Generally equipment can be utilized in most projects or at least a combination of handwork and equipment to save costs.
• After the all important route design process and desired routes are marked, typically with pin-flagging, the construction begins.  First the corridor is cleared, then the equipment operator sculpts the trail and then finishes the surface using various custom implements.