Here’s a fun one for you. This past Friday, I spent the entire day shoveling sand from a pile up near our driveway into my handy ATV trailer and then emptying that trailer all the way back in the woods. My goal was to make a short road through a wet area so we wouldn’t have to hop from rock to rock anymore as we were trying to cross. While it’s not too treacherous to cross mid-winter while everything is frozen solid, it’s a real pain during the spring and summer. Oh yeah, and fall. I’ve wetted a foot wet on more than one occasion. And the thing is, it’s not even like there’s any water there. It’s all mud. So anyway, I wanted to fill the area in so we would have an easier time with our walking as well as an easier time crossing with the ATV.
You already know about the quad. What you don’t know about is my new Polar ATV trailer. I bought this trailer a few months ago from Home Depot. They delivered it to me for free and it’s been in storage since I purchased it. This past Friday was the first time I used it. It’s rated to carry 1,500 pounds, so I figured it would be fine to move some sand. Who the heck knows how much sand weighs? Apparently, a lot. More on that later.
Here’s a photo of the quad and the trailer.
This is the trailer while empty.
And here it is with about two wheelbarrow’s worth of sand in it.
I figured that I would drive the ATV back into the woods and cross the wet area about half way. Then, I’d dump the trailer and pull the sand out of it. Easier said than done. The first time I tried to cross, I got stuck. So that’s where I dumped the sand.
While the setup doesn’t appear to be stuck in the above photo. It was. What’s tough to see is the hitch that’s resting on a stump. Once I emptied the trailer and flipped the ATV into 4-wheel drive though, I drove right out of the area.
The entire purpose of this project was to make it easier for me to ride back into the woods while pulling the trailer to haul firewood back out. And since I had a pile of wood sitting near the area in which I was working, I thought it would be a good idea to get a feel for that type of hauling. So, I filled the trailer with wood and pulled it out. Boy did that feel good.
After a day’s worth of digging and hauling, a path/road began to form.
Good thing my friend Ian stopped by to help during the day. He did a heck of a lot of shoveling and his assistance was much appreciated. He’s an animal!
This is the road about half way finished.
We did some more work after this last photo, but it’s still not finished. I’ve got to install a pipe that will lie across the path (under the sand) and then I need to transport even more sand back there. I still have a few yards left. I may even need to buy more of it next year to finish up. I walked back there this morning after a full day’s rain yesterday and there’s one mushy part. That will need to be addressed.
The big issue that surrounded all of our work was the bending of my trailer’s axle. While these trailers are rated for 1,500 pounds, I wouldn’t recommend putting even half that weight in there. The tubing of the axle seems to be thinner than tubing elsewhere and it’s not a tough thing to bend. Take a look.
I mean, the metal actually wrinkled. That just shows how thin it is. I actually bent it back yesterday, so at least it’s straight. This Wednesday, I’ll be visiting a steel fabricator to purchase two 2×2 steel tubes. I’ll be bolting those tubes onto the axle and the hitch bar. That was slightly warped as well. I’ll discuss my ingenious bending technique in my next post. For now, thanks for reading!
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