Terminology question

[Maxymiuk]

Ok, I realize this might be a somewhat odd request but, quite frankly, I'm stumped and I'm posting this here on the chance that there's someone here with more knowledge in the necessary area/better google-fu.

I need a term used for either:

- a special road/groove created for a team of oxen to drag a boat across land from one waterway to another.
- a road made by treecutters to drag fallen logs back to the camp, created by piling bark and branches into the grooves left by the tractor, to prevent the road from degenerating to the point where the tractor gets stuck or falls over.

What I'm actually looking for is the latter type of road, but I'm including the former, since it seems to be the same word in the language I'm translating from.


Thank you in advance.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

I remember the latter one being called "corduroy." Yes, it's the same as the material used for making trousers of the same name.

As for the first, nothing comes to mind except "portage."

[Flame of Anor]

Surfing HalfOrc's answer is right or very close--let me just clarify a bit. The road where you drag your boats from water to water is definitely a portage. Your second road could be a corduroy road, but a corduroy road is, very specifically, a road in which logs are laid across the road. It sounded sort of like you were describing a road in which the logs were laid along the road, in the ruts. I'm not sure what that type of road would be called, but I don't think it would be corduroy. Of course, a corduroy road fulfills exactly the same purpose--making a road surface where you don't get stuck in muddy ruts.