Category Archives: Mountain Biking

Fat Biking, Mountain Biking, Observations, Programs, Trail Updates, Uncategorized

It’s back

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Cold Roll Rutland is back in 2022! Save the date! Sunday, February 13th. Registration starts at 9AM. Rides start at 10, lunch at 12:30 and samples of Fiddlehead beer will be available to folks over the age of 21. Ticket’s can be purchased here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/copy-of-rutland-cold-2022-registration-239440291357

Press Release for: The 2nd Annual Cold Roll Rutland Fatbike Festival

[Rutland, VT, Jan 06, 2022] — The creative minds behind Überwintern and Winterbike are at it again! Mountain Bike Vermont has partnered with Pine Hill Partnership in Rutland, Vermont to offer a day of fatbike stoke on cold-rolled singletrack this Super Bowl Sunday! Join us Sunday February 13th, 2022, as fatbikers from around New England and New York gather in Rutland to lead a charge with Old Man Winter, replete with group rides, a vendor village, and hearty brews around warm fires.

The event will feature a vendor village, rides for all ages and abilities, and groomed packed powder trails for your fatbiking pleasure. Group rides will begin at 10am at the Giorgetti Athletic Complex at 2 Oak Street Extension (the Pine Hill Trailhead) where we’ll also convene for lunch at 12:30 pm. The remote aid station (aka party central) will be located at the overlook and will feature a bonfire and our favorite mid-ride refreshers. Lunch at Giorgetti will be catered by our friends at Ranch Camp (Stowe, VT).

“We’re beyond excited to bring the Cold Rolled back to Pine Hill – this trail network has some of the best fatbiking in the state, and the community rallies to maintain them all winter.” says event cofounder & Killington Valley local Nate Freund of MTBVT. “We’re stoked to bring the party to Rutland and introduce riders from around the northeast to these amazing trails!”

The $50 ticket price ($35 for the under 21 crowd) includes group rides, lunch (with both carnivorous and veggie options), a signed original Cold Roll Rutland artist print, as well as beverages. So air down those tires, break out the extra layers, and get ready to party MTBVT style.

SCHEDULE:

Vendor setup 8:00 to 9:00 Registration / Expo area opens 9:00 Group Rides

Advanced ride departs 9:45 Intermediate ride departs 10:00

Beginner ride departs 10:15

Remote Aid Station opens 11:00 to 2:00 Lunch 12:00 to 2:00

Event ends 3:00

Advanced Ride – This ride’s duration is up to 3ish hours. The pace is for avid riders that enjoy covering ground at a steady pace. You can expect up to 12ish miles of riding over variable terrain.

Intermediate – These rides are for most folks looking to have a good time, stop at the fire for a bit, and be guided around PHP. this ride will be three hours in duration with opportunities to bail out or put in a few extra miles.

Beginner ride – Beginner rides take folks on the easier terrain and no experience is necessary. This ride will bring participants to the remote aid station and back to base.

Interested in renting a fatbike for the event? Please reach out to your preferred local shop in advance as fatbikes are in short supply this season.

About Mountain Bike Vermont

Mountain Bike Vermont (MTBVT.com) is an online journal, events promoter, apparel company, and rolling party instigator. MTBVT’s dual initiative is documenting and promoting the Green Mountain State’s incomparable cycling community. Visit MTBVT.com for info on our annual event series, shop our online store, and peruse new and archived articles. #MTBVT Have questions? Want to become a vendor? Contact john@mtbvt.com

Education, Mountain Biking, Pine Hill Partnership, Trail Updates, Trail Work, Uncategorized, Volunteering

Community Work day

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CANCELLED

CANCELLED due to snow on the ground. We will reschedule when weather permits us to moving lumber.

Sunday, November 28th at 9AM meet at Evergreen Gate. We will be moving lumber in from the Pond Rd to Vista overlook for a new bench. Lumber is all pre-cut and ready to go just need some extra hands to move it in. Thank you. Hope to see you there.

Mountain Biking, Pine Hill Partnership, Trail Safety, Trail Updates, Trail Work, Uncategorized

Community work night

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Wednesday, August 4th, 5:30pm. Meet in the parking lot at Giorgetti. We will be weed whacking the Carriage Trail on the Rutland side. We could use your help. Bring a weed-whacker, if you don’t have one we will have a few for folks to borrow. Bring bug dope, wear gloves and bring a head lamp.

Education, Hikes, Mountain Biking, Pine Hill Partnership, Trail Running, Trail Safety, Trail Updates, Trail Work, Uncategorized

RTP GRant Awarded

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We are proud recipients of a Recreation Trail Program grant (RTP) through the VT Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation who administers the grant. Out of 23 applicants we were one of nine chosen to receive an $18,000 grant. This will pay for a 3 week VT Youth Conservation Corp crew in 2022. This crew will work on Maximum Capacity and Bone Spur which are both located near or off Milk Run.

We would like to thank Kim Peters and Nikki Adams at Rutland Rec for helping the write the grant. Joel Blumenthal and Nicole Kesselring were instrumental in helping with the maps and Act 250 questions that we had to answer. Without everyone’s help our grant would not have been a success.

With some luck, YES plan from Rutland High School will return in the spring of 2022 to help with our fantastic trail system.

Education, Mountain Biking, PHP in the News, Pine Hill Partnership, Trail Updates, Uncategorized

100 years old

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Pine Hill Park is 100 years old on May 9th this year. How cool is that? Henry Carpenter a successful businessman in Rutland bought the property from Annie Pierpoint and donated it Rutland City for $1.00 on May 9th, 1921. His vision was for recreation space. For a complete history of the park click on the ‘history tab’ in the menu bar.

Education, Fat Biking, Hikes, Mountain Biking, Trail Running, Trail Safety, Trail Updates, Trail Work, Uncategorized

Update on trails

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UPDATE April 8th: Trails are riding great. With the wind we have been having trees are falling down so reports are appreciated. pinehillpartnership@gmail.com. Trails that are still closed Exit Strategy, steep hill on Droopy, Lichen Rock. Voldemort should be open later today April 8th.

UPDATE April 5th: Opening up trails this afternoon except for our normal winter closures. Hopefully our 15 degree nights are done. Thank you for being patient.

UPDATE April 3rd: Trails are still going through freeze/thaw cycles with the cold weather that is back. We have frost poking up on the trail tread. Please NO BIKES.

UPDATE March 29th: Trails are slowly drying out. With all the rain on Sunday(28th) things got pretty soggy again but it did drive the frost out of the ground. Snow is in the forecast for later in the week so we have to wait until after that event to melt. We will be monitoring trails regularly to see when we can open for bikes. We need a bunch of windy days to dry the park out. PLEASE BE PATIENT!

We are in the middle of freeze/thaw cycles when the trails are super fragile. We would appreciate folks staying off the trails at this time. Hikers if you would stay on the Pond Rd that would be greatly appreciated too. Thank you.

Cross Country Skiing, Fat Biking, Snowshoeing, Trail Running, Trail Updates

Winter grooming under way

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UPDATE 3/12/2021: Please no bikes until the park dries out in April. We are in a very trail tread fragile time of year with freeze/thaw cycles. If winter really shows back up again and everything is frozen solid you will want studded fat tires. Thank you for respecting all our hard volunteer work efforts into making Pine Hill Park such a cool place to play.

UPDATE 3/8/2021: We are done grooming for the year. With warm weather this week and wanting trails to unthaw for spring it is best to leave them alone. It has been a great winter for fat bikes, skis and hiking in the park. Not often we see snow that stays for a long period of time in Rutland.

As we approach spring with freeze/thaw cycles we are asking folks not to use the trails. It does a lot of damage to the trail tread when they are in that fragile state. When trails get rutted up water runs down that rut when it rains or when the frost is coming out of the ground. The water running down the rut then washes away all our hard earned soil we have moved by hand. We appreciate your cooperation. Thank you.

UPDATE 2/25/21: Nate N tried to groom today-Thursday 2/25. Snowdog kept falling off the track he had set earlier in the week. So instead of plugging long he headed back to the barn. Studs and ice cleats are highly recommended. Please do not ride/hike on the trails later Saturday or Sunday when temps get warm and turn everything to mush. Thanks!!!!

UPDATE 2/20/21: Nate N groomed more late this afternoon. Everything is in great shape. Check it out before the 45 degree weather shows up on Wednesday.

UPDATE 2/20/21: Nate N did groom some on Friday 2/19. He is planning on hitting more trails today to make them a little easier to walk and ride. Bikers and hikers if you are sinking in more than an inch please stick to the Pond Rd. When the bike tracks and foot prints freeze solid it’s not a lot of fun to walk or ride on. We can do some grooming but getting frozen tracks out of the trail tread isn’t something Snowdog can do unless we have fresh snow to smooth stuff out. So think about long term for trail use and what you would like it to be-smooth or rutted? Please 4″ or wider tires please. Thank you!

UPDATE 2/19/21: Nate N is planning on grooming later today(Friday 2/19) to try and get some of the foot and snowshoe prints out of the trail tread. The idea is with a little bit of snow and warmer temps he can smooth some of it out. Hearing the report on riding fat bikes in the park is not a lot of fun right now with all the frozen foot prints.

UPDATE 2/13/21: Nate N has been able to groom the last two days with the metal drag sled. Everything packed down really well and should be great walking, running and fat biking until next snow. Please leave a donation in Tinman or join Pine Hill Partnership to help offset the cost of running Snowdog. www.pinehillpartnership.org Thanks.

UPDATE 2/4/21: Nate N has done a bunch of grooming the last two days. It still might be a touch soft but should set up nicely. Hopefully we won’t get too much rain on 2/5. Here is a grooming map on what has been done.

UPDATE 1/19/21: Nate N did some grooming today. It’s still a little soft but we have a good track set. What is groomed: Escalator, Svelte, Sisyphus, Watkins, Shimmer, Overlook, Jigsaw Milk Run, Salamander, part of Droopy, Pond Rd. Plus a width swath on the ballfield.

UPDATE 1/16/21: It’s a soft and slushy weekend. We would appreciate folks to stay off the single track trails so they don’t form slushy ruts that freeze. Thank you.

UPDATE 1/13/2021: Park is riding super currently. We are asking 4″ or wider tires please. Please leave a donation in Tinman that will go toward our cool trail system. Thank you.

UPDATE 12/25/20: Christmas morning it is 55 degrees and raining out. We are very much hoping not to lose all our snow today. Once things freeze back up again and we get some snow Nate will continue to groom.

Nate N has started to groom in the park. We had so much snow last week that it was really hard for Snowdog to get through it. Waiting now for snow to compact and get some moisture in it so it will pack down. The plan is to try and get the trails highlighted in red groomed before the rain shows up on Christmas Eve. We’re hoping to get a solid base down and that it won’t all melt!

Snowshoers and skiers you could help us out by following these highlighted trails. It will make it easier for Snowdog .

Thank you.

Education, Fat Biking, Hikes, Mountain Biking, Observations, Trail Safety, Trail Updates, Uncategorized, Video, Volunteering

Why we leave leaves

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Why we do not remove leaves there are several reasons. One we move all hard earned dirt by hand in 5 gallon buckets and leaf blowers blow all that dirt off the trail tread. Second the ground up leaves will actually help hold our dirt on the trails and protects the trail tread. Plus freeze/thaw cycles the leaves help hold our trail tread in place and not get sucked up on boots or tires.

We are not blessed like other local trail systems that have an abundance of dirt. Pine Hill Park is not one of those areas.

We know leaves are slippery especially when wet but with the traffic the park is seeing currently the leaves will get ground up quickly.

Thank you for understanding.

Here is a great video on why we leave leaves.

Mountain Biking, Observations, Pine Hill Partnership, Trail Updates, Trail Work, Uncategorized, Volunteering

Milk run is open!

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As of late Monday September 7th, our newest trail, Milk Run, is fully open!!

Our newest trail, Milk Run (pink line), is now open!

We started building this trail with YES plan from Rutland High School and Youth Works volunteers in 2018. That first year we completed about 1300′ of trail with 400 volunteers and 1600 volunteer hours. In 2019 we completed about 1000 feet of trail with 1225 volunteer hours, 286 volunteers. 2020 the year of corona and no major volunteer groups like YES plan or Youth Works we accomplished quite a bit.

The trail is just under 3900 feet (.74 mile) long. FYI, the longest trail in the park is Stegosaurus at 4100 feet.

The Vermont Youth Conservation Corp (VYCC) came in with 4 crew members for 2 weeks and we completed just under 1500′ of trail. With VYCC removing organic material and our three Pine Hill Partnership volunteers doing finish work behind them it was a perfect combination utilizing the work force. We completed just under 1500′ trail in a little over 500 hours. We did have an extra hand two days that really helped with getting a couple of small banked corners built along with finish work. Having a trained work crew was instrumental on getting this trail done.

VYCC is a paid trail crew. We are still soliciting donations and contributions to help defray the cost.

A time lapse of work on Milk Run during a hot, humid August day makes it look way easier than IRL!.

The trail still will need a touch of refinement next year (hopefully our big volunteer groups are back). We expect to build two banked corners on the new section.

5 pry bars to move ‘Deborah’. VYCC was naming the rocks.

Keith came down and helped for two days.
Follow the yellow brick road
It poured for about 30 minutes one day.
Rock armoring to raise the trail tread
  • Dropping the rope on Milk Run