Update: Our May 12th work day starts at 9AM meet at the front entrance of the park. Projects will be clean up Exit Strategy and repair tire ruts plus clean up drainage’s on trails. We have tools and gloves for everyone bring water, bug dope and sunscreen.
2018 Community Work Days:
Saturday, April 28th at 9AM. Meet at the front entrance.
Saturday, May 12th at 9AM. Meet at the front entrance.
Will be working on the front gardens and cleaning drainage’s out.
YES plan starts June 6th and runs through June 19th. We are not sure exactly what days we will have volunteer groups.
Youth Works starts June 18th and 19th at 9:30AM at the front entrance. We work every Monday and Tuesday till the end of July. No group the week of July 4th.
Date for our annual dinner is Monday, March 26th at 6pm. Come join us for a light fare of soup and chili. We will hold short business meeting then move onto future plans for the park.
Do you have a skill set that you might be willing to volunteer to help Pine Hill Partnership out?? We have all kinds of small projects that do not involve shoveling dirt.
As we are in the midst of the freeze thaw cycles. We have a few trails that we will be closing off for winter. This will happen the week of November 20th. These trails stay closed until spring is well under way.
Droopy Muffin (steep hill) between Intersections 30 and 30A will close, Lichen Rock and Exit Strategy. We do this to protect the trail tread from ruts when it’s soft and folks are riding. There is always a good possibility that Voldemort will close in late winter once the surface water starts running.
Please respect our trail closures. Our volunteer groups work really hard to have a great trail system so please don’t make work for them by rutting trails up.
Folks here is an excellent video on why we do not remove leaves from our trails.
Reasons why we do not remove leaves from Pine Hill Park trails and why our bridges do not have hard wire mesh on top.
We tried leaf removal for 2 years in a row about 6-7 years ago. By July our trails are all ball bearings. Means people are slipping and sliding around on ball bearings all summer long which isn’t any fun. Leaves help hold our trail tread together. A lot of this has to do with our soil composition compared to other areas. In the spring by leaving the fall leaves on it protects our trail tread from freeze thaw cycles which lets us open up earlier.
The other issue are leaf berms on the downhill side of trails and clogging our drainage’s up. Means water runs down the trail tread which is washing away our good dirt and creating more drainage’s issues. The other downside is leaf blowers blow all the dirt off the trail tread. We work WAY too hard to move dirt on the trail tread to have a leaf blower come along and blow it off again.
Why our bridges do not having hardware mesh on them. The bridges that we have seen in Vermont that have hardware mesh on them are flat there are no curves/bends or twists. Most of the bridges in our local area are made out of pressure treated lumber which is slippery when wet. Our decking on the bridges in Pine Hill Park are composite material which we believe is not as slippery when wet like pressure treated lumber. We do not want people falling on the hardware mesh which would hurt even more than falling on the composite decking.
Yes we know the leaves make it more challenging to walk, run or ride but by leaving the leaves on the trail our system is more sustainable in the long run.
Thank you to the volunteers on Saturday, October 7th to who helped repair the Hour Glass Bridge. The center section still drops but now is solid resting on rock and 6x6x’s. The rest of the bridge leveled. Next community work day is Saturday, October 21st, 9AM meet at front entrance.
We need YOUR help on Saturday, October 7th, meet in Giorgetti parking lot at 9AM. We are going to raise the center section of Hour Glass Bridge up out of the mud and water. We will shuttle material and tools in to powerline on the Pond Rd. From there we need to walk them in. Please consider coming and helping out.
We had a great morning for a mountain bike race. All ages were allowed to race. Medals were handed out to age groups 40+. Here are a few pics from today’s event.
Saturday, August 26th. 8:15-noon bring water and mosquito repellent. The project is to rake out a connector trail between Dewey Wood Rd and Ridge Runner on the Redfield Trails. Meet at the front entrance of the park.
Weed whacking night on the Carriage Trail, Wednesday, August 9th, leave the Giorgetti Parking lot at 6pm. We will have extra weed whackers for use. Bring a head lamp to hike out with.
