These steps were existing when I bought the property.

They were built on a foundation of landscape timbers just sitting on the ground. As a result, they are rotting from the ground up. The deck boards are mostly fine, but the landscape timbers are rotting.

I want to replace them with something longer-lasting, but I'm not sure what. I priced out pavers and natural stone, but it's more money than I'd prefer to spend. (I've got nearly 200' of distance to cover!) So I'm trying to determine the best way to do it with with wood or composite.

One option is to build each step like a little deck, with four 4x4 posts supporting joists and deck boards on top. But that's a lot of holes to dig! (I'll probably have about 40-50 steps.) And then I still worry about the posts rotting over time. I know there are several ways to do this. One is to put some rocks down at the bottom of the hole, then put in cement like you would a fence post or mailbox. A longer-lasting option would be to use concrete form tubes to make footers and bolt the 4x4s onto a stand-off at the top of the footers. Then you have no wood-to-earth contact, which is better, but that adds a lot of work and expense.

Then there are some options with composites. One is to use the fence post method, which is less labor intensive than the concrete footer method, but use composite 4x4s as posts. Another option is to build the steps as they are now, but with composite landscape timbers. That requires virtually no digging or concrete, but potentially more composite material.

Any thoughts on these options or suggestions for other options?

Thanks!