How do you maintain walking / biking trails in the woods? Recently purchased a home with more than 4 acres of property. The majority of that is fairly dense woods.

As someone who builds/maintains/manages trails for a living, I think it would be important to consider how you expect to be using these trails and what kind of terrains they will be on. You don't have to bring out a bunch of specialists (unless you want to) but you will get a better return on investment if you think about what it is you want to do with your network of new trails 🙂 motorbike? Walk? Horse? You can fit a lot of trail I to four acres if you want to, or just a single loop.

There are guides out there on how to create and maintain trails. More focused on public trail managers - but might be useful if you're looking for a way of fixing a trail on a steep slope, for instance

Shovels, mcleod, rakes, time. Machete if it's really dense. Power tools if you can. Also, good gloves are nice. Tamp if you need it to be packed/flat. Big Emphasis on the core stuff though: shovels, mcleod (pronounced "McCloud"), rakes, and a fuckton of hard work. All the stuff is very core, but the mcleod is one of the lesser known tools and surprisingly useful. Heavy and requires strength, but useful and you'll get used it to after a bit. Not sure if it's considered old school, probably is.

One tool we bought recently that has been super helpful is an electric powered hand pruner. It's make snipping down things like saplings along the edge of trails super fast and easy. But take note- this type of tool is super dangerous! Children etc should NEVER be allowed to use it, because you can cut off a finger before you even realized you pulled the trigger. It's as dangerous as a chainsaw in it's own way, but if you are used to using chainsaws and being very careful, you might consider it.

Well, the most traditional way of maintaining walking trails is gonna be to just walk on them a whole lot lol

If I were in your position, I think I'd probably start by trying to plant the trails with a space-filling, short ground cover plant of some kind. Something that won't be mowed and can outcompete grass and other tall plants.

Native plants are always best, if you can manage it. Especially in a wooded area where invasive non-native plants will easily spread beyond your control.

Here's some options that might work:

https://choosenatives.org/articles/plant-native-ground-covers-make-america-green/

I use the leaf blower and overtime walking the trail, clears it up nicely. And a pair of hand pruners.

Machete, cheap gas lawn mower, battery powered trimmer and preferably someone with a chain saw and common sense.

This will be down voted, but, herbicides are your friend

You can find the natural animal/deer trails in the woods and just maintain the distances between your treeline and those paths

If they aren't walked often they will overgrow and become wild

Here are some more pictures :

https://imgur.com/a/zxnxgq1

https://imgur.com/a/3WKhf44

Clearly the previous owner had some trails at some point. I have a zero-turn mower, but I’m hesitant to drive it through the woods and risk hitting a large stump or a rock.