Driveways & Roads

Gravel driveways, ranch and private roads, culverts and approaches , cut, crowned, graveled and compacted to shed water and survive Wyoming.

Your driveway is the hardest-working piece of ground you own. It carries every delivery truck, every loaded trailer, every trip to town and back , through spring mud, summer dust and hard winter freeze-thaw. Built right, it disappears into the background and just works for years. Built wrong, it becomes a washboarded, potholed, water-holding headache that costs more to fix than it would have to do correctly the first time.

JH Excavation builds driveways and private roads across Powell, Cody, Ralston and the wider Big Horn Basin the way they should be built , from the subgrade up. That means we don't just dump gravel on dirt and call it a road. We strip the soft organic topsoil, shape a subgrade that actually sheds water, install a properly sized gravel section, and compact it so it holds together under load.

Whether you need a short approach off the county road, a long lane back to a new build, or a ranch road that has to stand up to cattle trucks and hay equipment, the fundamentals are the same. Get the crown right, get the drainage right, get the material right , and get it compacted.

What A Proper Driveway Actually Takes

A driveway is a layered system, not a surface. It starts with a stable subgrade , the native soil, stripped of soft material and shaped to grade. On the Basin's clay-loam ground we pay close attention here, because clay traps water and turns to soup if the road above it can't shed moisture. Over that subgrade goes a base course of larger crushed rock or pit-run for structure, then a finer surfacing gravel that packs tight and drives smooth.

The single most important detail is the crown , the gentle peak down the center that pushes water to the ditches on either side instead of letting it pond and soak into the roadbed. Paired with proper ditching and correctly sized culverts at low points and driveway approaches, the crown is what keeps your road from potholing and washboarding season after season. We build it in on purpose, then compact each layer so the finished surface stays put.

Culverts, Ditches & Approaches

Water management is where most cheap driveways fail. If runoff has nowhere to go, it goes into your roadbed. We shape roadside ditches to carry water away and set culverts sized for the flow they'll actually see , at the county-road approach, at field crossings, and anywhere the grade dips. A crushed, undersized or missing culvert is a washout waiting for the next heavy melt.

At the approach , where your drive meets the public road , we build a clean, well-supported transition that meets the road at the right grade so you're not scraping your hitch or dragging mud onto the pavement. It's a small detail that county road crews and your own vehicles will thank you for.

Ranch Roads & Long Lanes

Rural properties around Garland, Clark and out past Ralston often need more than a driveway , they need a real access road, sometimes a half-mile or more of it, capable of carrying heavy equipment year-round. Those jobs live and die on drainage and material. We grade for positive drainage across the whole run, armor the wet spots, and lay a gravel section built for the loads you'll actually put on it.

Because we're local and own our iron, we can build these efficiently , no long mobilization to price into the job, and one crew handling the cut, the haul, the culverts and the final compaction from start to finish.

Questions About Driveways & Roads