Category Archives: Hikes

Community Work Days

2024 Community Work Day: Saturday, April 27th-9AM-noon. We will do a little bit of work in the front entrance to help Master Gardner’s out. We also have some trail tread repair work on Overlook to improve drainage. Meet at Giorgetti parking lot. We have tools, bring water, bug dope, sunscreen and gloves. Thanks and hope to see you there.

Yes Plan dates are being set by Rutland High School teachers now. Yes plan runs from May 31st until June 14th. Please contact us if you have folks who would like to join us. pinehillpartnership@gmail.com

VYCC will be joining us the first two weeks in July. We could always use extra hands to work with local high school students in the park. Work day is Monday-Thursday from 8-4pm. For more information email: pinehillpartnership@gmail.com


Community work day

Join us on Saturday, April 27th for our first trail day, 9AM at Pine Hill Park. We have a couple of projects to tackle. One is to repair Exit Strategy corners, clean drainage’s out and clean up the front entrance. Many hands make light work! Hope to see you there.

Park is open for bikes

Update: May 1st: Thank you for being patient. Park is open but quietly-basically people reading the webpage will know or word of mouth. TrailHUB and social media will hear it week of May 6th. Watkins Wood Rd is really wet up near Svelte Tiger intersection so please walk in the mud/water do not leave a tire rut.

Update: April 30th: Park is still closed to all bikes. We are working on two trails to get water off the trail to get rid of the mud we’re experiencing. Thank you.

Just a touch of water this year.

Update: April 23rd: Carriage Trail is closed to all users. Velco is putting up new power poles out near Muddy Pond and have asked us to stay away this week. Park is still wet so please NO bikes. Thank you.

Update: April 22: Please no bikes. We are patiently waiting for the rain stop for more than one day. Please come give us a hand Saturday, April 27th for our first community work day. Meet at the front entrance at 9AM. Tools and gloves will be provided.

April 13th: Please no bikes. We have a lot of rain coming Sunday/Monday that will keep trails particularly corners too damp to ride. Please be patient. Thank you.

Update April 11th: Please no bikes in the park. We are in the midst of our freeze/thaw cycles that raise havoc on the trails. Trails are drying out nicely but are still tender so please be kind and stay off with bikes. Thanks.

The tire ruts from bikes will let the water run down the rut, and that then washes away all our hard earned dirt. Dirt in the park is hard to come by. See this for more info! It’s all moved to the trail by volunteers using buckets and shovels.

Our first community work day is Saturday, April 27th, 9AM. Meet at the front entrance. We will provide gloves and tools.

There is no paid trail staff, there is no mini-excavator working to move dirt. Please do not ruin it for everyone else.

Thank you Community Bank

Community Bank gave us a very nice contribution this spring. We used it to purchase materials to build two benches for the park. Thank you to Augie Levins who built the benches and to all the other volunteers that helped move them.

One is located on Underdog powerline and the other one is on Droopy Muffin powerline. We have several other locations we would like to install the same type bench in the future.

Stegosaurus is now open 4pm

August 15th, Stegosaurus will be closed for the day while we remove a couple of large dead oaks near Hour Glass Bridge. Please refrain from riding, hiking or trail running on Stego Wednesday. THANK YOU.

Trails are Open

Update: 5/2/18: Green Mountain Power did a great job in repairing the corner on Underdog they had to drive over to replace a power pole. A little caution advised as dirt is soft in the banked corner.

Update: 5/1/18: Caution on Underdog today May 1st. Green Mountain Power is installing a new power pole and will be in the park.  Come to the community work day on May 12th to help repair the corner on Underdog they will drive over.

Update: 4/26/18: Trails are open today. Remember our community work day on Saturday 4/28 at 9AM, meet at the front entrance.

Update: 4/24/18: Please no bikes. We are waiting for the rain event to pass by then we will reevaluate the trails. This rut was left by an inconsiderate rider a week ago. The rut will collect water then the dirt will slough down the hill and the banked corner slowly erodes. This in turns means more work for volunteers.

Update: 4/22/18: Please no bikes. Trails are still soft. If we have a few more sunny days like yesterday trails will dry quickly. Please be patient. Thank you.

Update: 4/20/18: It  is going to be a stunning spring weekend and we know everyone wants to ride their bikes. Our trails are still too soft to allow bikes. Please be kind and refrain from riding any type of bike. The volunteers would really appreciate it.  We had snow again last night so trails are not drying out fast. Weather forecast looks promising for a few sunny days that hopefully will dry the trails out. We recognize  some of you ‘think’ the trails are ok to ride or you’ll walk around the soft spots. Well you know those banked corners you love to rail well they are super fragile right now. Thanks again by not riding.

Update: 4/18/18: Trails are still closed to all bikes.  The trails are still extremely fragile. Bike tires create ruts that water follows and creates erosion and means more work for the volunteers. Please be considerate and do not ride. We have some nice weather coming up and hopefully trails will dry out quickly. BE PATIENT! The message is the same through out the state with trails being too soft for bikes. Thank you.

Update: 4/16/18:Trails are still closed to all bikes. We have had freezing rain and sleet that covered the ground again. This needs to melt and we need some sun to dry everything out. We’ve had very high wind today so we expect a lot of blow downs. Please send an email to pinehillpartnership@gmail.com with the location of any trees you see down. The more specific on which trail and closer to which intersection would be greatly beneficial for us. Thanks.

Update: 4/14/18: Trails are still extremely fragile. PLEASE NO BIKES at this time. We are monitoring the trails daily. Thank you for not riding at this time. If you are looking for exercise you could help us out by cleaning out drainage’s.

Update: 4/13/18: PLEASE BE PATIENT! NO BIKES PLEASE. Our weather report for the weekend is not exactly conducive for drying our trails out.

Update: 4/6/18: PLEASE NO BIKES! The ground is not fully un-thawed. We have more snow on the ground now that earlier today. Trails are going to take a while to completely un-thaw and firm up. Please be patient to ride your bike. Go for a hike and clean drainage’s out or pick up all the small sticks that came down in the wind the other night. Volunteers do all the work in the park, please be kind to them by staying off the trails.

Update: 4/2/18:Please NO bikes. We still have some snow, frost on and in the ground. Until that is gone no bikes please. Looking at weather report that could be a couple of weeks. If you want some exercise take a hike and help clean out some drainage’s or pick up all the small sticks that came down in the wind the other night. That would really help especially with the rain in the forecast.  A volunteer over the weekend did some serious cleaning on the drainage in the pic above.

 

Update: 4/1/18: Please NO skinny tires. Fat bikes are ok if it’s well below 28 degrees and NO SUN! Please, please, please be smart on riding your bike. Everyone in the state is in the same boat with freeze/thaw cycles. Trails are extremely fragile!

Update: 3/28/18: Trails are a mixed bag of frozen snow (if below freezing) and open areas that receive sun. We ask all bikes not to ride if temps are above 28, especially if the sun is out. Thanks. Sounds like early April we could have more winter like conditions.

Update: 3/12/18: Trails are primarily snow covered and will have another fresh coating of snow today/tomorrow. Rutland is in the 5-8″ range.

Update: 2/27/18: Trails are extremely tender with the freeze/thaw cycles are are experiencing. Please NO bikes of any kind when sun is out and temps are above 28 degrees.  Hikers please walk though the mud and not around as it widens the trail.  Voldemort is closed till late spring.

Update: 2/23/18: Major melt mid-week left us with mud, dirt, ice, slush, snow. Please NO bikes if temps are above 28 as the trails are starting to unthaw where the sun hits them all day. Please be kind to our trail system.

Update: 2/18: We had TONS of snow in early February. Skiing, snowshoeing was awesome. Now we’ve had a week of warm. About  4″ of snow 2/17- on top of firm but not super icy crust. We have had rain and warm last week so condense snow pack.

Point being conditions are all over the place for the next week to 10 days. Long range weather is saying early March could bring us a stormy pattern. We will see. It’s Vermont, wait a day if you don’t like the weather.

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Fat biking is ok, studs highly recommended as of January 29, 2018. There is a lot of ice, hard packed snow, frozen dirt.  If you’re hiking micro spikes really recommended and sprayed with silicone of PAM spray to keep the snow from sticking to them.

 

Winter activities are happening

Update: 3/12/18: More snow coming today/tomorrow. Rutland is in the 5-8″ range so skiing, snowshoeing will be good. Maxiglide is recommended for waxless based skis.

Fat biking, snowshoeing, XC skiing are fantastic right now in the park, Redfield trails and the Carriage Trail.

Snowshoes can be rented at the front desk at the Giorgetti building.

Big trees down

We are still in the process of cutting some of the larger trees down on the Redfield Trails. This one was cut up this past weekend and it was a snarly mess. Hopefully by the weekend (Nov 18/19th) we’ll have the last of the Redfield trails cleared of trees. Hunting is allowed on the Redfield trails so please wear bright colors.