Highway 44 Trail, Redding CA.
March 2015
This trail above Hwy 44 in Redding will take walkers to awesome vistas.
However it “cuts” through some ancient river aggregate, semi-consolidated , with cobbles, gravel, sand, clay and a really nasty shrink-swell clay from old lake or?? When it rained big a few weeks back the water oozed out of the slope. What can be the fix? A retaining wall with drainage? soil nailed wall? Something very engineered and expensive?
We are going with compost (will encourage deep rooted native bunch grass (nasella pulchra) that will ultimately anchor and reinforce the soils) but the compost and soils need to be reinforced with ENKA Mat first. We decided to use anchors (long pins 12-18″ long) that will “push back” at the forces “weeping out”. We added mycorrhizae to provide the symbiosis needed for the grass. We also decided upon a 50/50 mix of compost and sandy loam soil import to ‘fill in’ eroded areas.
Oh, and then we will apply hydromulch (Flexterra FGM), think green armor system, into the ENKA Mat surface. The Flexterra will also provide cover and reinforcement for about a year.
This is not the first time we have used this system. See Dirt Time TRM episode and check out this past project breakdown (The Opal Cliffs of Santa Cruz).
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.
More on this project soon!
-John 
For more projects like these go to:
Secret Canyon – Not A Secret Anymore!
Lower Sulphur Creek (A Chapter From Bioengineering Case Studies)