My homemade rock and scale trail

[Hoosierdady]

Ok, so it's not a mountain per say. But it's a big@ss rock nonetheless. My daughter and I hit up Home Depot and spent about $100 in materials, took right at 5 hours to do all of this.
We started with chicken wire, "Big Gap" expanding foam, 240lbs of crack resistant concrete and 60lbs of pea gravel. Here's my little helper...

The foam part and making the wire structure was very easy.

No mountain is complete without a tunnel. We also fed a small tube to the top of the mountain to creat a waterfall once we get to the water portion of the trail. I also placed a winch spot at the top just incase.

Used some fine mesh screen to create this little rock. All i did was make the shell from wire mesh and then smooth the concrete over it.

The trail portion leading up to the mountain has deep potholes, rocks, scale trees and what not.

And here is the completed trail, part 1 of 3. I'm going for right at 40-50ft of trail. I'm going to incorporate everything from steep sheer faces that may require a winch, to waterfalls, bridges and tunnels. The best part, my wife LOVES it. She wants me to do more believe it or not! Throw some flowers around the course and she's all in. Dont know why I didnt think of that before.

Here's the sheer face. I hit everything with some streaks of black and gray paint to give it a more realistic boulder look.

The tunnel is big enough to get my scaler through, I doubt the Wraith will fit, but then again this trail is for that big of a truck. I'll add some yard lights and a waterfall once I get that far into the trail. The wooden bridge leading off the mountain will segway into the next portion. More to come...

So, what do you think? Not to bad for a half days work huh?

[jetboat]

It looks nice. If you do it again, ditch the spray foam and use burlap. It will save you a ton of money and the burlap acts as rebar.

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[Hoosierdady]

Good idea. I will for the flat areas. I used the foam because it acts as a structure to hold shape while the concrete dries. Kind of like a stucco type deal.

[SMR 510RR]

Originally Posted by Hoosierdady

Good idea. I will for the flat areas. I used the foam because it acts as a structure to hold shape while the concrete dries. Kind of like a stucco type deal.

Just put some wood braces under the mesh, once it dries it isnt going to go anywhere. Spray foam is way too expensive to use a lot of.

[gabehunt]

it looks awesome! i need to build me some rocks! haha

[Hoosierdady]

thanks for the comments guys. I've got alot more to build, so I'll try the burlap and wooden braces. I'm working a fish pond into the trail to keep the wife happy. So my plans also include a path that goes undernieth a waterfall. I've got her blessing on this, so I'm goin all in. It wont be a 100 gate trail, but it'll have at least 20 gates.

[ridepate]

Looks great man!!! Good-deal too the wife's into it!!!

[BORN_TO_CRAW]

You can save even more money if you use old bed sheets or go to your goodwill store and get some instead of burlap..works great and cheap sometimes FREE!
Oh and another thing..pick up some old pallets and use them for your wood brace.and again FREEEE!
Look in Craiglists for pallets or retail stores in the back..

[Hoosierdady]

I tried the trail last night. It's way to easy for my crawler. Might be a different story for my scaler, but as it is it's not hard enough. My wife made a good point in saying that it should be this way. It stands to reason it should start out easy and get harder as the trail goes on. If thats the case then mission accomplished because it walked right through at full speed. But anyway, thanks for the ideas. This thread will be on going for a while as I make progress through each phase.

[stoner]

thats pretty cool !!!!

[Hoosierdady]

I got about another 10 ft or so done yesterday. It includes a mud bog and a trail that wraps around and goes through a series of clean out troughs...

water trough goes through the tunnel and holds about 4-5 inches of water.

Then it curls around and goes over a series of rocks and other obsitcals like my Model A rim.

I've got alot more planned for it. I'm figuring on at least another section or two.

[Maddog Madigan]

Wow, great ideas and work you've done so far.

[89lxmorepower]

Make sure to put either chlorine a table spoon of bleach in water under tunnel to prevent bugs from breeding in it like masquitos sorry for the spelling lol but your course track is looking really good keep it up.

[THX_138]

Nice work...

You can grab some cheap and easy ways to increase the skill areas of your course by driving what you already have from different angles.
You might have a ten foot section that you can traverse fairly easily, but how much harder would it be to come at from the side? Or even from a 45* angle from the side? Make some turn offs that loop back and get you crossing spots of the course you already have built. Cheap easy way to increase driving on what you already have built.

What you have so far looks great
Keep us posted with updates.... We all love pictures

[Hoosierdady]

Thanks guys. Good idea on the water, chlorine would prolly be the best option. Ill do that.

As far as hitting certain areas from different angles to increase difficulty...I'm incorperating certain turnoffs for when I dont want to get in the mud, and for when I do. If you'll notice where the trail drops off after the "log bridge" you can turn to the right and skip the whole mud area all together. The wife has given me the go ahead to do whatever I want, as long as I make it resemble landscaping and I keep working flowers and plants into the trail to make it look nice. As of now I'm planning on looping through a fence row that has alot of large bushes/trees. So I can have about another 30ft+ that you cant see, or barely see unless you're standing in front of it. I'm going to end up with enough trail here to hold small local comps. I figure between this and making a truck pull sled, I should have enough for a full day of running. So far the trail is getting to a overall stretched out length of about 25-/+ ft, my plans will run the trail out to around 60-70ft long at least. That should be plenty long for a small comp or a local GTG once or twice a month. Any ideas on additions are definately welcome! I can use all the help I can get on thinking up different obsticales.

[reden]

Originally Posted by Hoosierdady

I got about another 10 ft or so done yesterday. It includes a mud bog and a trail that wraps around and goes through a series of clean out troughs...

water trough goes through the tunnel and holds about 4-5 inches of water.

Then it curls around and goes over a series of rocks and other obsitcals like my Model A rim.

I've got alot more planned for it. I'm figuring on at least another section or two.

Looks excelent! Well done man.

What truck body is that?

[Hoosierdady]

Thanks. As far as the truck goes, its just some cheep toy I picked up for my nephews to play around with. I snapped off the chassis and wired the front axle to the body, hit it here n there with some brown spray paint to simulate rust and buried it.

[reden]

Something else I noticed.
The stone you use is simmlilar to what we call Sand Stone.
Not sandy at all but has the grain of sand and gives traction beyond believe.
Something like stone wrapped in sandpaper.

[Hoosierdady]

yeah, the "rock" I made with the tunnel has extremely good traction too. Its just steep enough to need a winch. I can almost get over the top with my scaler and the tire pics up and it flips. I incorporated a winch point on the top, so I finally have a use for this high dollar winch/controller other than looks. The stone is pretty tacky. Works like a charm. I need some ideas on either more unusual or realistic obsticals though. So if you guys have some ideas, let me know.

[cameraman]

looks good im still collecting materials for mine but i had to promise to make it look more like a garden than a pile of rocks lol