Once we had gotten our 200 foot (60m) long hand-dug trench through the forest dug all the way to the old trail switchback, we were able to get the remaining 3,900 ft. (1,188 m) part of our waterline dug by a big backhoe (similar to the one above). Once it made its way up the old trail to the trail’s switchback, it started digging a trench 5-6 ft (1.4-1.8 m) deep, down the middle of the trail, downhill, all the way to the road.
After we had struggled through rocks and roots, hand-digging a trench maybe 2 ft (60cm) deep in the first section of our waterline, through the woods, it was amazing to watch how quickly the big machine was able to eat its way through the ground, making a much wider and deeper trench than we had been able to dig.
Because of all of the twists and turns of our trench through the forest, there we used a more flexible, 2” black poly pipe for our water. In the trench dug by the backhoe which was straighter, we used rigid, white, 2” PVC pipe, that came in 20 foot (7m) lengths, that had to be glued together and sometimes joined by couplings when we had to make a turn in our trench.
The bottom of the dug trench was not always level; in places we had to put big clods of dirt under the pipe to support it, so that it wouldn’t break when the backhoe backfilled the trench after we had gotten the pipe laid.
The photo below shows an up-hill shot of the old trail where the backhoe dug the trench for our waterline.
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