OT: Any ideas on a way to move/place small boulders?

Well, since you don't want to leave any footprints, you're only option is a well calculated shaped charge to lift the boulder and have it gracefully drop into the new location.

Jeff

Helicopter, derrick crane with a rock grapple?

--Winston

Get some steel plates and place them on top of your rough terrain. Slide the boulders on the steel plates. Remove steel plates and the ecology should remain unperturbed.

Remove some of the flora and temporarily transplant to a wooden box. When done, put the plants back.

LOL!

I'll hire Mr. Coyote.

Wind blast is too much, but perhaps a 'wide legged' crane.

Not bad, but sheet steel weighs more than boulder.

transplant, tried. even with extreme care only been getting 50% success rates

I was thinking a long the line of a 'rough landscape' motor hoist

A DIY or gardening group, like uk.d-i-y, might be a better place to find someone who's done something similar.

How heavy and what shape are these boulders? Can one or two people lift them, if only a few inches?

If roughly spherical, could you roll them along a pair of rails that need only to be supported at points where there aren't plants. Or could you get them onto a sling hung from a catenary, or carried between two people? Stories are told of local rugby clubs and an adequate supply of canned lubricant being employed for such activities.

Chris

Balloon lift? Any hot-air balloon enthusiasts in your area? Once the canopy is sufficiently inflated, you'd be dealing just with the mass and not the weight. Need to have an anchor line (to a power winch) to take a strain once the ballast (boulder) is dropped. Three anchor lines spaced around the perimeter may even allow the balloon to be winched from a drop location to the next pickup location.

Or helium-filled weather balloons?

Sheet steel disributes the weight over a much larger area. If you don't mind destroying some lumber, use some 2x12 planks.

Add water... the plants will grow back.

Put giant baloon tires on an engine hoist. The basic idea is to minimize the ground loading.

That made me think of a 300 ft. long 'Centipede' with 3/4" black pipe legs, fixed at both ends with aircraft cable into soil anchors. The peak of each set of legs supports a linear "I" beam. A trolley rides on the beam and supports a come-along winch that lifts the boulder.

Another winch on the high side controls the travel up or down hill.

"Gantry crane meets mini ski lift", sorta.

--Winston

Winston wrote in :

Do it the old fashioned way... here's what you'd need:

Position your winches this way: Winch one: 30 degrees to the left of the boulder Winch two: dead ahead Winch three: 30 degrees to the right of the boulder

Lay down 2 of the planks at the edge of the boulder, hammer the fence posts into the ground to anchor the planks, so they're flush with the top of the holes in the planks. Place the rope net around the boulder so the net's pull-point is facing the direction of the winches. Hook up the winches and pull, using the winches to 'steer' the boulder. Lay down the next two planks and repeat. When the boulder is off the first set of planks, place the fence-post puller on the plank and pull the fence posts, then pick up the planks, lay them down at the far end of the other planks, and drive the fence posts back in.

Lots of manual labor, but it'll pull very large boulders quite a distance pretty quickly, and it does minimal damage to the surrounding flora.

If you're dealing with sloped terrain or a very large or oddly shaped boulder, you might need two additional winches placed at 90 degrees to the left and right of the boulder, for more direct 'steering'. This will slow down the pull considerably, as you have to move these two winches frequently as the boulder moves.

Your pull points for the winches, you'll have to figure out for yourself... we used 5 foot long, very thick metal rods, driven down into the ground and angled away from the boulder, so that only about 6 inches of rod was showing above ground. Each of these had a metal loop welded to the top for the winches to hook to.

(...)

If we are allowed that amount of 'site impact', I think a tow truck would be 'way faster and gentler. :)

--Winston