We have closed Exit Strategy, Droopy Muffin steep hill-between Intersection 30 and 30A and Lichen Rock. We have problems with freeze thaw cycles on these particular trails throughout the winter into early spring. Please respect closed trails. Thank you your hard working volunteers.
Category Archives: Trail Running
Memberships
We are an all volunteer organization that keeps the trails in Pine Hill Park in nice shape.
We are constantly working on drainage, downed trees being removed.
Your membership, contributions, donations all go directly back into Pine Hill Park. We have a lot of trail maintenance to get done in the next couple of years so your membership dollars and contributions will go directly back to the park.
We do have some cool swag associated with our membership levels. Dave Jenne our volunteer graphic person who does our maps, swag graphics and fantastic picture taking came up with Bone Spur this year.
Joining Pine Hill Partnership is easy! Check this link out! https://pinehillpartnership.org/membership/
Trails are Open!
April 15, 2023
Great news! All of our trails are open to bikes, pedestrians, runners. We are completely amazed at how dry the park is for this time of year.
Trail maintenance will continue through the spring and summer.
Just a quick reminder that these trails are built and maintained by volunteers. Please consider joining Pine Hill Partnership by using the button on the front page—or by leaving a donation in Tinman when you visit us.
We’re the first trail network to open in the state, so please be considerate of our volunteers who have worked super hard to create a great trail system. Unfortunately, trails do not magically appear :- )
Thank You !
Snowdog is BACK!
Nate N has been out grooming in the park as of Monday, January 23rd. He will continue to groom as we appear to be getting a little more snow on-and-off over the next 10 days.
With Rutland Cold-Rolled just around the corner (February 12th) we are kindly asking people to treat our groomed trails with care. That means lowering your tire pressures so you’re not leaving ruts. Run 4″ or wider tires PLEASE! No regular mountain bike size tires pretty please!
Walkers, runners—please use snowshoes or X-C skis. Those little toe divots are not fun to ride on, and are very tough to groom out once the snow sets up. If you need snowshoes the Community Center has them to loan out.
This is a huge event that showcases Pine Hill Park to the mountain bike community in the northeastern US. We really could use everyone’s help in keeping our trails in tip-top shape!
(^-^)/ Thank you!
Maximum Capacity, It’s Grand and It’s OPEN!
On Sunday, August 21 we opened the last new trail to be built in Pine Hill Park and we definitely saved the best for last. We celebrated with a little ribbon cutting, some refreshments, and a chance to say hello to long-time members as well as those just discovering the park.
Prior to the official snip of the ribbon long time Pine Hill Partnership leader and project coordinator Shelley Lutz shared a few thoughts:
“Thank you, Rutland Recreation, for having the trust in Pine Hill Partnership to build and maintain trails in the park. This started around 2003 with Cindi Wight and Michael Smith, who had a vision of the asset that Pine Hill Park could be for the city, then Ejay Bishop agreeing with this vision. Now it’s Kim Peters and Tyler Dahlin. The Rec Department’s trust has been instrumental in getting the park to where it is today. Thank you all.
Next round of big thank you’ s go to Tim Vile, who designed the bridges in the park, and more recently Nate Netsch, Leonard Bartenstein and Keith Wight who will still come down to help us out on major projects.
Pine Hill Partnership board of directors: Andy & Peggy Shinn, Joel Blumenthal, Claus Bartenstein, Lindsey Johnston, Nate Netsch, Dave Jenne.
A huge thank you to Josh Harris and Rosey for volunteering their time, energy and mini-excavator to build the jump line on Maximum Capacity. This started out as me casually mentioning to Josh one day there was a mini bowl area we discovered when Keith and I walked this trail 5 or 6 years ago. Josh immediately said I’ll donate my time and mini and get Rosey to help build a jump line. Thank you Josh and Rosey for all your time well spent.
VT Youth Conservation Corp has had a big hand in building trails in Pine Hill Park along with Rutland High School YES plan, Killington Mountain School and Youth Works. YES plan and KMS programs will be back in 2023 and Proctor High School will be doing an outdoor education class 2 days/week this fall learning how to maintain trails.
Claudia Sachs was a crew leader for our crew this past summer that built Maximum Capacity.
Funding for Maximum Capacity has been by contributions from folks who use the park. Plus a Recreational Trail Program grant that Nikki Adams a former Rec employee helped write. Thank you Kim Peters for letting Nikki assist in writing this grant. “
The work done by the VYCC crew was hard, dirty and wet a few days but luckily they did not lose any days to poor weather. Even the mosquitoes didn’t carry them away! The spongy moths were buggers the first week but even they slowed down thankfully.
Maximum Capacity is 2486′ long. When combined with Broken Handlebar, Jigsaw, Milk Run, Furlough and Exit Strategy it will be 12,215 (2.3 miles) foot long mostly downhill run.
Pine Hill Partnership applied for a Recreational Trail Program (RTP) grant which we received to pay for this 3 week crew. Thank you to Rutland Rec for their help in writing the grant and the maintenance crew for their support in mowing VYCC camping site and equipment we can borrow when needed.
Hope to see you in the park trying out Maximum Capacity soon!
Park is OPEN
Saturday, June 4th: Jigsaw is now open.
Sunday, May 21st: Park is open today with Jigsaw being closed and roped off. There are still some tender places in the park so be gentle riding please. Thank you.
6PM UPDATE: Friday, May 20th. Park will remained closed for Saturday. We will reassess later Saturday afternoon to see if trails have dried up to open for Sunday. We still have standing water on a lot of trails. Please stay off the trails it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Volunteers will be checking the trails late Friday (5/20) afternoon to see if they have dried up. We had another .2″ of rain on Thursday evening. We are hoping the trees leafing out and a little bit of wind this afternoon things will dry out for the weekend. Stay tuned. Thank you.
We have had to temporarily close the park due to the amount of rain last Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. We have standing water on a lot of our trails. The water needs to drain out before we reopen for all users.
Thank you for respecting our temporary trail closures.
Water on Strong Angel, Jigsaw and Sore Elbow, Tuesday, May 17th.
KMS Students
Thank you to Killington Mountain School for a solid morning of removing organic material on Maximum Capacity. The students, coaches and administrators broke open about 900 feet of trail in 2 hours. This is 900 feet less than the VT Youth Conservation Corp will have to do in late June. Thank you KMS!
Rutland High School YES Plan is back in early June. We will continue to work on Maximum Capacity.
It is fantastic to have these work groups back in the park.
Family Fun
Thanks to Anna and Emma to showcase Pine Hill Park. Video is a minute long and gives you a glimpse of what the park has to offer for kids. https://youtu.be/DNvXYO7vEkg
10 k leaf chase
The Leaf Chase is back for 2021!!! This is a pretty cool event, it is in person this year. Course will be marked for participants. Anyone is welcome including walkers.
For more information and registration sign up here: https://www.rutlandrec.com/leafchase
RTP GRant Awarded
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.
