[Dsunday]

Does anyone know anything that would make working with very wet greesy soil easier?
It's winter now and we are trail building very messy.

Our ground is mossy and greasy and sticky and doesnt always go down to rock.
Is there anything that would help the the ground to 'set' a bit?

 

[GodSmack]

Dig around until you find a source of sandy soil. Trust me the Glaciers deposited the stuff every where.
Some call it golden sand. its not always gold in color. usualy its grey. But it wont be black or brown.
Lots of work but remove the organic soil and replace with sandy soil. in a perfect world you place a bed of rocks under the sandy soil.
If you mix sandy soil with organic soil you end up with a friggin mess!
Very hard work but its rewarding. The fact that you are trail building is great!
I would post pics but Ride Monkey is havin a lil problem with that at the moment.

 

[eastcoastdirt]

You have to either do some sort of trenching or culverts to drain the soil, bring in rock to armor it or put in boardwalk to go over it. A few years back we had a very wet piece of trail that we put culverts in and had to let it sit for 1/2 yr before it hardened up. It's fine now but after the install the ground was like a large field of jello. Getting the machine out without destroying the work we did was tricky.
Good luck

 

[Jm_]

Drains,holes, and trenches on the sides of the trail. They need to be lower than the trail surface to work. Look at the techniques for doing this and realize that your water-logged trail is like a sponge holding water, yet, if you can get some drainage or place for the water to pool lower than the trail, you can get it to dry out usually. We get crazy water-logged stuff in Alaska and this is real important if we want a dry or dry-able trail.