Walking Trail and other Excavating

We are hoping to build a walking trail out here at Kaycliff. Our property is uniquely suited to provide a picturesque view of Boone Lake and the surrounding East Tennessee environment for casual hikers and folks who want outdoor fitness opportunities.

Along this trail, we’re going to put a few shelters that help educate our patrons about the places the Sanders travelled. We will probably put several interpretive labels or exhibits around the trail that educate patrons about more local topics.

On the master site plan that was emailed to you, this trail is shown in it’s rough location in yellow. There have been a few changes to this. We will not be building a large picnic shelter on the South side of our property, or a restroom facility to accompany it.

However, the line of the trail will most likely follow a path similar to the one pictured here.

When measured, the linear footage of this comes out to 5059 feet, which includes a 500 linear foot allowance for the “island” or peninsula.

To account for any errors in measurement, spur trails to shelters, or any possible additions, please use 6400 linear feet as your basis for your proposal, although we suspect the final linear footage will be lower than 6000.

As is, we could run heavy machinery over parts of this trail to remove vegetation, and have an adequate surface for most folks.

However, there are several reasons why we want to surface our walking trail with a product like crusher run.

We want a better traction for vehicles. Ultimately, we will be putting structures back in the woods, and that means they’ll have to be maintained. It’s going to be a bit easier to do that if they can be driven to. If someone gets injured on this trail, it’s also going to be easier for vehicle extraction.

Also, there are parts of this trail that tend to stay muddy for days after it rains. We’d rather have more uniform traction for people, too. Even if that means it’s a little less natural.

For surfacing, please use a crusher run or a crusher fine gravel as a basis to reach an estimate. We are not experts on trail construction. However, we have found an article that describes in many ways the type of surface that we are interested in. We are not fully versed in subsurfacing that prevents and controls erosion as described in that article. ADA accessibility is not, at this time, a primary concern for the entirety of this trail. However, there may be parts of this trail that require going deeper than 4-6 inches; either due to rock or to correct for cross slope.

In addition to the walking trail, there are several other excavating projects that we need:

The initial sitework for a playground. The location for this is marked here. Based on conversations with our playground vendor, the area would have to be dug to about 8 inches deep. Right now, the surface area for this playground is going to be 3000 square feet.

The initial sitework for up to eight (8) shelters along the trail. These would have to be dug to accommodate a foundation.  We’d also like your proposal to reflect pouring the foundations for these structures.

There will be a few odds and ends that go along with this project that we cannot account for entirely in this RFP. To coin a phrase “known unknowns” that mostly relate to installation of signage and other things that can be dug with a post hole digger and secured with a minimal amount of concrete.

As with any part of our property, there are rock considerations, here is a photo that shows some of the rock conditions on our trail.

Additionally, the below screenshot shows the approximate location of the playground.