Terracing a slope

[Cash only]

Im looking for the best way to terrace the slope in my backyard. By that I mean to make good use of dirt I already have vs having dirt trucked in to fill. Slope is about 20-25%. anything over 4ft retaining wall must be engineered so I just want to keep with the 4ft as a maximum. I was hoping to terrace from 4ft inwards of both fences(east property line and west property line fences) so that terrace would be around 70ft wide and was hoping for a length of around 12-15ft.

Most rearward wall is made of block.

Backyard faces north.
Northwest corner of the slope, slopes down to the northeast corner of slope.
East side of property line is shorter than west side property line.

I know this is a nightmare terrain to be building something flat on and ive prolly explained it worst but im sure it can be done.

im including some pics to help.

pic #1 facing north
pic#2 facing west slope
pic#3 facing east slope
pic#4 nw slope facin ne slope
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once again sorry for the confusion. I would appreciate any help. thanks

[Don_P]

Looking at it from this vantage point;
http://www.construction-resource.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1724&d=1250650061
You could excavate back into the hill until it makes a wall in the bank something between 2-3' high. Building a retaining wall at that point with drainage and gravel behind it and levelling with the removed soils would push back the yard and give the first. lowest, terrace step. With a surcharge like that above, it still needs engineering.

[Cash only]

Sorry forgot to mention it will have only one terrace to be made as high up on the slope as possible as there is a decent view. The most rearward part of the terrace would be at the 3rd fence post from the blockwall. That is where the retaining wall would be and run to the right to meet the east fence. thanks for the input so far.

[Mike44]

In an environment like that, I would suggest you use red or grey armour stone to build the retaining wall(s). My preference would be to keep it natural looking as opposed to building walls of stacked brick. Using armour stone though may break your budget since, by the pictures, it would seem as if you would need a lot of it. I see that you wrote that you don't want to bring in truck loads of fill, but this may be required to back fill behind your retaining walls in order to create a decent sized terrace at the top (I'm thinking you want to put a few chairs up there and a table maybe for the view??).

Remember that your retaining walls don't necessarily need to go all the way across from fence to fence. You can have one stop half way across and then start the next one a bit lower so you allow some space for a path maybe.

Mike

[angdeer]

I would do a step type look. longer wall on the bottom then shorter as you go up. Plantings will help more than you realize.

[Mike44]

That's very true. Maybe even some ivy growing up the retaining walls, or boxwood hedges (in a few years) would mask the hard walls.

Mike