I live in western NC, and it's definitely hard work. We very seldom us GPS, heck less than 25% of the surveying the companies have GPS units. The steepness gets old but it's much better than cutting line in a laurel thicket. Keep the bush axes sharp!!
Family owns a several acres on the South Toe not far from the wood dam where the old mill was. Not many private parcels in that section. Nice place to retire which for me is not long off.
The median grade here is 30%. We routinely build houses and roads on 60%.
I drove through West Virginia a few years ago and thought that looked at least as steep. And I heard they get snow on the road sometimes.
Our vegetation is nasty. About half the time you can do topo by cutting with a machete as you go. Otherwise it's spend a day cutting lines and then shooting the next day.
> I also have surveyed on Mt. Mitchell. Part of the park boundary. Gets the heart beating both from the views and the work. I actually own land on the South Toe river. My front porch(when I build it) will have a view of Mt. Mitchell! For the moment I am in eastern NC-but maybe one day????
You guys must be talking about somewhere around the golf course then. I've done quite a bit of work all over 70-South - including traversing across the golf course. In fact I have not only worked all over Yancey county, I lived there for about 11 years so I know just about everywhere. Plenty of rough (i.e. not surveyor-friendly) mountains all over Yancey, Mitchell and Avery counties.
One morning we were starting a new project in and around the Mountain Aire development west of Burnsville. During the meeting it was mentioned we should come across [so and so's] irons and to get shots on all of them so if they could get data on them we could use them. I piped saying I know him VERY well, and why don't we just go over ask him for his data. Not really believing me they sent me over to his office and I just walked in the back door like I had hundreds of times before. I told them not to expect me back real fast because he LOVES to sit and chat. About an hour later I came back with a CD of all his data plus map copies he made for me. Of course he was curious to know who I was working now and how I'd been and stuff and job we were about to do - thus the hour visit. His other 3 guys sitting there were the part of the original crew that had set all those irons we were suppose to look for and they remembered them all and didn't envy our upcoming task. They gave me plenty of helpful hints how to get to some of them. Since I came back heavily armed with all this information, I didn't spend a lot of time on the gun. Mostly, they had me do the recon/location and frontsight since it was clear I had the "inside scoop" on that place.
I miss my buddies and the views but not the work.
When Taso came up to help me move down here, we were driving into town and he mused "you survey in this sh....?". Then made some comment about the survey work he had for me was going to be like a vacation. Except for the bad neighborhoods, heavy traffic, city people and heat and humidity, he was pretty much right.
E.
That is Lacey country up there.
> The median grade here is 30%. We routinely build houses and roads on 60%.
Roads on a 60 % grade sound un drivable , unless for really short distances or in a tracked vehicle maybe.
10 years in MT USFS Cadastral back when a KERN or Wild T2 with an EDM was standard. We didn't do the field calcs on my crew, so we had to cut all the miles of NF boundary lines with a chainsaw. I felled Douglas firs that were 4 ft.DBH rather than turn 90's GPS was just becoming available (if we begged). We had to time our static sessions carefully, more than one section 1/4 cor in SW MT has a 100' radius clear cut, just so we din't have to trav in there;-) Highest elev. caps I set: 2 alum pipe/cap monuments at 10,100 ft on the south side of Beehive Peak. North end of the Madison Range
I love reading the descriptions of various places and why they are 'the worst place in the world' to survey. Steep, wet, hot, cold, thick, barren and the list goes on. I've had the good fortune to experience a variety of extreme conditions while surveying. The only bad memories from any of it have nothing to do with the environment. For me it's about who I endured it with. I'd rather be a rod-man back in Panama during monsoon season (again) than survey a tropical beach with someone I cant trust...
100% grade would be a 1:1 slope, very hard to even stand on (but I've done it, both to stake it and to as-built it).
60% is a 1.66...:1 slope, still VERY steep. A skidder might be able to go up that, maybe.
I live in West-by-God Virginia. I have routinely driven up roads where the sky is all you can see past the hood of the truck, but I don't think they were even 2:1 slope. I'm guessing a 2.5:1 is about the max for most stock vehicles and that is 40% grade.
I routinely have crews working in PA, MD, VA, WV, & KY
(& sometimes NY). I almost have to threaten to fire people to make them work in WV.:'(
Maybe I should qualify the above isn't for those who own a Land Rover and want to drive it up a steep rock:
That still probably isn't 1:1, though.
I took it as pre-construction grade was 60%.
Sure, the ground may be 60%, the road cutting across is up to 25-30% and that's getting dangerous. The steepest public road here is about 35%, private roads up to 45% and deadly.
Me and Ralph Hodges 'bout killed ourselves on the steep ridges south of Lake Celan in Central Washington in the late 1980's. If you knocked a rock loose it would bounce for 1/2 mile, across the highway and into the lake. Once I grabbed the root of a blowdown to help pull myself uphill and the whole tree broke loose and shot down the hill. But the stupidest thing that I did was to try to cross a 50° from from zenith sideslope carrying three tripods around my neck, 40 lb pack, the instrument in one hand and chain saw in the other. The steepness increased until the only thing holding the hillside together were clumps of grass here and there. You had to step from clump to clump because inbetween were chutes of loose marbles. It finally got so bad that I couldn't go forward or back. It was thirty feet to the next clump but beyond that the going wasn't so bad. It was certain death to fail, but I launched myself running at an angle uphill, like you would trying to cross a swift stream. I made it! I would never take another job after that where the sideslope was more than 57° from the zenith.
Caught myself holding my breath
while watching that video. I've watched too many America's Funniest Videos and the new Fails show with Terry Crews as host. If it can go wrong, it will on those shows.
I agree the North Cascades just to steep to survey with a modern theolite. We have run uphill because the scope was into the plate looking down. Out of Darrington WA we did a federal boundary of only 3,700' with a elevation change of about 4,300'.
For the worst it is the Klamath Mountains of Southern Oregon and Northern California, both steep and brushy.
Just outside my back door in Idaho is the Lolo Creek Canyon, a 1400 foot drop on both sides in 1200' horizontal. The State asked for quotes to survey their boundaries there. Mine was $109,000, to cover the cost of rappelling. The low bid was something like $36,000. He never finished; at least he was smart enough to quit before he killed himself. The irony is that in the State's hype they said it would be a good winter job because the elevation was so low! Well, the bottom was, at 1800 feet, but there was no way to get there except by rappelling or kyak. The moral of the story? When it comes to government, there are no morals.
Laurel is the worst. I have cut too many lines through central PA, and it's completely impossible to see through a clump of laurel.
http://www2.fiskars.com/Gardening-and-Yard-Care/Products/Loppers
These save a pile of time in Laurel.
Nothing like going a steep, snowy grade towing a trailer with a atv and get stuck. Step on the breaks and all of a sudden you start going again - BACKWARDS! That feeling of "OH $H!p" as you gain momentum. Been there and lived to talk about it. Luckily the trailer jack knifed and slowed us down when it went over the edge. Seen some pretty steep grades.
I use loppers more than I use a brush hook/blade. Much easier on the elbows, and makes a cleaner cut.
Makes a safer cut, too. You're not leaving little punji sticks everywhere.
