We have a ravine running through our property. When we moved in, we had a small "pond" on the south side, then there was a 20-30' flat area of grass that was fairly smooth and could be driven across. Then the rest of the property had a smallish "ditch" running through it. The first year or two we had some crazy heavy rains that caused a bunch of erosion so that our flat spot got down to ~10'.
I got a couple of folks out that dig ponds, do earth moving, etc....
What they both said is that if we want to minimize the erosion, what we need to do is smooth out the edges of the current ravine, straighten the ravine as much as possible.
One guy talked about taking out trees, and was going to REALLY flatten/straighten working with 15-20' of hillside. The other guy's plan was essentially the same thing, but much smaller.
The first guy said it would cost $6k, but he was going to go bigger than we wanted. The other guy, we think, wasn't interested in the work. He said "$7k-10k", but then never sent the estimate.
We aren't ready to spend that sort of money. I'm thinking of doing the work myself.
What do you think would be the best equipment for doing the job, a bulldozer, a small excavator, or a track loader?
The red line is roughly the path of the ravine.
This is the recontouring of the ravine that both guys talked about but in different degrees/amounts. I'm thinking 4-8' back from the edge of the ravine and then 1-1.5' vertical.
This is the sort of thing that happens once or twice a year.
You can see from this USGS topographical map, that there's not really anything that we can do about the water or the ravine. The water is going to run.
Our property is south of 90. I included the top half of the screenshot to show that it eventually turns into the "south fork" of Harvey creek
The ravine is 3-6' wide in most places, and 2-3' deep. What would be the best piece of equipment to accomplish what I'd like to accomplish?
Bulldozer, skid steer or excavator
