Forest Trail Handbook

SECTION IX.—MAINTENANCE

40.—POLICY

The maintenance policy is stated in paragraphs 2 and 9. Slighting of maintenance work allows the standard of the trail to decline until reconstruction becomes necessary. Overdoing maintenance limits the mileage that can be maintained with available funds. Well-balanced work is required. Construction should not proceed so rapidly that maintenance cannot be kept apace. Remember that anything worth constructing is worth maintaining properly.

41.—CLASSIFICATION

Maintenance is classified under three general headings:

(a) Emergency maintenance.

(b) Ordinary maintenance.

(c) Extraordinary maintenance.

EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE includes all work that must be done to make trails simply passable before the fire season opens or before the regular crews complete the repair of a given trail.

ORDINARY MAINTENANCE has first call upon available funds, following emergency maintenance. It will be done currently, and ordinarily includes:

(a) Routine work of clearing trails of all logs and interfering brush.

(b) Clearing tread of small slides and debris from the inside of the tread, and light repair of treads,

(c) Upkeep of drainage systems.

(d) Repairing wash-outs.

(e) Light repair of bridges, culverts, and corduroys.

(f) Removing rocks and roots from treads to make feasible the use of plows and scrapers in removal of the debris.

(g) Upkeep and replacement of trail markers and signs.

(h) Tearing down and burning or burying mutilated and faded "Fire" and "Reward" signs.

EXTRAORDINARY MAINTENANCE is given high priority, usually ahead of new projects in trail work plans. It comprises:

(a) Removal of dense growth of brush and trees.

(b) Removal of heavy downfalls of timber over considerable distances.

(c) Removal of heavy slides or reconstructing new sections of trails around slides.

(d) Replacement of cribbing, preferably by rock walls, and rebuilding of damaged rock walls.

(e) Regrading of tread at proper position where it has worn downhill.

(f) Making dangerous places safe.

(g) Relocating and constructing new sections where mistakes in original location materially reduce average rate of travel over the project as a whole or where the original trail is so badly damaged that reconstruction is necessary.

(h) Replacement of unsafe bridges, culverts, and corduroys.

(i) Providing drainage which entails a large amount of work.

(j) Replacement of trail markers in considerable numbers.

(k) Improving grades on steep, broad-faced ridges.

42.—SPECIFICATIONS FOR CONSTRUCTION APPLY IN MAINTENANCE

All specifications under the section "Construction", whether specifically mentioned under the "Maintenance" chapter or not, insofar as they cover the maintenance field, are to be followed in maintenance. For example, in repairing treads, shape them according to proper design for the region (see figs. 6 to 10); or in the installation of water bars, follow design shown in figure 19.

43.—MAINTENANCE SEASON

Ordinary maintenance may continue throughout the field season. It should be the plan when moving crews, to place them where they will be of the greatest advantage in fire control.

44.—ORGANIZATION FOR MAINTENANCE

Use the type of organization which will do the most work for the least cost on all repair jobs.

45.—ORDINARY

To do ordinary maintenance, if dirt in small quantities only is to be removed, mobile crews composed of 3 men including a "worker boss" or foreman, equipped with suitable tools and cook outfits and 2 or 3 burros for moving camp as work proceeds, have proved to be a very effective and economical form of organization. In this handbook it will be referred to as the "burro system." Use of the system is strongly urged. Where the removal of loose or settled earth from the tread is a material factor, then, if feasible, use plows and scrapers drawn by horses or mules. Under these conditions the "burro system" may or may not be practicable.

For light maintenance, not involving much clearing of down timber or dirt work, use of a single man will often be the most economical arrangement.

46.—EXTRAORDINARY

The best organization for this class of work will approximate that outlined for the construction job. Here, too, use plows and scrapers to the fullest practicable limit.

47.—DECREASE OF EXTRAORDINARY MAINTENANCE

Need for extraordinary maintenance should gradually grow less if proper attention is given to current repair and reconditioning of the many miles of trails now in bad shape as a result of years of neglect. With extraordinary maintenance of the trail system completed, then, generally speaking, upkeep of trails will fall into the class of ordinary maintenance.

48.—MAINTENANCE UNITS

After needed extraordinary maintenance has been completed the trail systems of a forest might be divided into "maintenance units", each unit to receive a thorough going over at scheduled intervals, as circumstances may require, by crews using the "burro system", or by a single man. Fallen trees will have to be removed and other emergency work done as a matter of course each spring, in addition to ordinary maintenance.

Grouping trails in maintenance units may not be practicable for many years in some of the badly burned forests of the Northwest because each spring the emergency maintenance due to the enormous amount of windfall is such a huge job.

49.—DANGEROUS PLACES

Confine work under (f), extraordinary maintenance, to the elimination of actually dangerous sections, such as places with beds of slick rock on steep slopes, very rough trail beds bordering precipices, trails in boggy ground and where insufficient side clearance makes travel unsafe. Remember that conditions classed as dangerous in one locality may be merely relatively and not actually so; the same conditions might be accepted elsewhere as satisfactory without thought of need for improvement.

50.—RELOCATING

Confine work on graded sections as described under (g) extraordinary maintenance, to those where rate of travel has proved to be actually and materially slower than the average of the project.

Do not cut out pitches merely for the sake of making a section of trail look better, as, for example, the elimination of the reverse grade indicated in figure 30, by the construction of a 10-percent grade (shown by dotted line) simply because the 10-percent grade should have been built in the first instance. However, if the section of a trail, as, for example, the section shown between (a) and (b) in figure 31, is badly overgrown, its tread worn out, and the cost of reconditioning it would equal the expense of constructing a new section along the 10-percent gradient, follow the latter plan.

FIGURE 30.—Abandonment of existing trails on side hills. (click on image for a PDF version)

FIGURE 31.—Abandonment of existing trails on ridges. (click on image for a PDF version)

51.—IMPROVING GRADES ON BROAD RIDGES

In brushing out old ungraded trails which follow ridges or points, having broad faces, abandon the old route and cut a new clearing through on lower percentage of grades if the old trail is unreasonably steep and there is room to switch back. In the relocation, follow the principles outlined in paragraph 10. (See fig. 32.)

FIGURE 32.—Improving grade on flat ridge. (click on image for a PDF version)

52.—REMOVAL OF OBSTACLES FROM THE TREAD

In maintenance work on secondary and primary trails, always remove all roots, stumps, and projecting rock in the bed of the trail which, if not dug out, would interfere with efficient use of plow and scraper. Give particular attention to the making of a clear-cut angle at the meeting of the back slope and the tread (figs. 6—10).

53.—FREQUENCY OF MAINTENANCE

All classes of trails should be maintained annually, and the maintenance plan should make it clear that low-duty trails are to get the same attention as other classes; that is, they must be opened up annually to be sure they are open, passable, and usable. Of course, the class and amount of maintenance work to be done on these low-duty trails should be in keeping with the requirements of this class of trail.

On account of the urgency and need a few years ago for a large mileage of low-duty trails, a large portion of this class of trail was built to a very low standard originally; this permitted leaving some logs and other obstructions that a horse could get over, but probably with some difficulty. Where this condition still exists, or whenever the way-trail system has slipped back so that the trail or trails do not measure up to the requirements and specifications, as set forth in this manual for low-duty trails, maintenance plans should make provision to bring this system up to these requirements as soon as practicable.

To insure systematic and efficient maintenance, the work in each Ranger District should be done according to a plan worked out by the Ranger. This plan being with a master map of all trails, shown by classes in color; each trail foreman to be given a rough sketch map on which is indicated only the trail system on which he is to work; the foreman to turn this map in to the Ranger when he completes maintenance work on a system of trails. He should indicate on the map his accomplishments. The Ranger will transfer this information to his master map to be used as a check on his inspection trips.

A work schedule should be made and given to the foreman of each crew. This schedule should have, as an example, the following information: The name, number, and mileage of trails to be worked; approximate time that each job should be completed; special instructions about contacts with packstrings, with supplies, etc.; where and when to split crews; instructions about posting signs, etc. All working tools and equipment necessary should be listed, and checked to be sure they are taken along. Foreman should be supplied with a carrying case containing all necessary instructions and time-keeping supplies, such as Trail Manual, maps, diary, time books, special instructions on use of explosives, and written instructions from the Ranger covering all necessary details as applied to local conditions.