Road Building 2

These 3 pictures show a situation where in 2003 a person started to build a road without landscape fabric. This can be done. In fact, the majority of rural roads were done this way. It takes several years, additional layers of gravel and ongoing maintenance to make it work. In this case, the individual put in the first load and then changed their mind. The first picture is the way the surface looks today. By now a second and third layer should have been placed on top to give you a good aggregate surface. The second picture shows the gravel that was originally dumped on the ground and the third picture shows the gravel soil interface. If this road was travelled frequently, the gravel would get pushed down and the red soil would mix upward. So option 1 is to use landscape fabric followed by one layer of gravel. (See pictures in Road Building 1 post). This should give you a road with less ongoing maintenance although it isn't carefree. Option 2 is to use large gravel to get a base, followed by several more applications of gravel layers. Also see Roadbuilding 3 post and this http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/stewardship/accessroads/accessroads.htm