Category Archives: Trail Work

Trail tread degradation

A picture is worth a million words. This trail was built in 2007 and over the years has lost almost 10″ of trail tread. We rebuilt this trail by hand in 2025 to repair drainage’s that had disappeared years ago.

We have received a Recreational Trail program grant for 2026 and 2027. This will continue to allow us improve drainage’s in many parts of the park, Redfield and Carriage Trail this up coming year.

To build up this area we rock armored before adding a lot of mineral soil to the trail tread.

Community Work Day

Come join us for our spring community work day on Saturday, May 2nd from 9-noon. Meet at the front entrance, bring sunscreen, water, gloves and bug dope(just in case black flies are out).

We have several projects we would like to complete this day.

Help Master Gardner’s in the front entrance, set 10 fence posts to extend our natural fence, help Come Alive Outside reset some of their Story Walk that a vandal pulled out, take a hike with tools to clean drainage’s out, reclaim the old section of Backstairs with brush.

We would love to see you there!

Annual dinner

Join us for our annual dinner at the Godnick Center (1 Deer St, Rutland) on Sunday, April 12th from 5-6:30pm. We will have a short slide show and presentation plus election of board members. Please RSVP here https://forms.gle/VHDzcrUNvB1ggLoa9

Winter Grooming

Nate N has started grooming trails in the park. He will keep laying down nice tracks as long as we have snow to groom.

Pedestrians please do not post hole trails. If you are sinking 2″ into the trail tread please stay on the Pond Rd.

People on bikes. 3.8″ or wider tire please. Please don’t rut the trails up for everyone else by riding a regular mountain bike.

Cold Roll Rutland is scheduled for Saturday, February 21, 2026. Tickets are available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rutland-cold-rolled-fatbike-fest-2026-tickets-1976007531720

The trails are maintained by volunteers please be kind to the trails as not to make work for the volunteers.

Thank you.

Capital Campaign

Last year, two families donated a combined $10,000 to Pine Hill Partnership. We then reached out to you, our members, to ask for matching donations. This campaign raised $29,000. We put these funds toward all the trail work we did in 2025.

These same two families have kicked off a 2026 capital campaign with another $10,000 donation ($5,000 each) and asked us to reach out to members to step up and again match their donations. So, by the end of this “matching” campaign, we want to raise at least $20,000.

Why do we need so much money?

Because Pine Hill Partnership is in the midst of major trail remediation in the park, and we still have a long way to go. Refurbishing the trail treads increases trail longevity, especially on some of our older generation trails.

Our older trails were built back in the early to mid-2000s, and they are showing their age. We built trails differently in those days, and they are not up to today’s trail-building standards. The rain storms are heavier and more frequent now, and we have a lot more folks using the trails, so they are degrading more quickly.

This past spring, we had 5” of rain in less than a week. This caused major run off that created a fair amount of mud on several trails. With the work we have done this past year, we’re hoping to prevent water running straight down the trail tread again. In some places we have measured trail degradation up to 12” over an 18-year period.

While much of the work in the park is done by volunteers, the work needed to refurbish these trails requires paid trail crews and builders. Our budget for this trail work next year is $30,000. The $20,000 raised during this “double match” campaign will go toward offsetting that expense.

If you would like to read about projects that were completed in the park this year, please visit our webpage: https://pinehillpartnership.org/present-day/

Can you help us? We appreciate contributions of any size! And we are a 501 (c) 3 non-profit for tax purposes. A check would be great (so we don’t pay the percentage fee to Pay Pal). But if Pay Pal is easiest for you, please click on the “donate” button on our website: www.pinehillpartnership.org


Summer Repairs

It’s been a busy summer with KSA Built, Global Action Sports Solutions(GASS) along with VYCC and Youth Works.

KSA Built started in the park in May to repair some of the water damage from 5″ of rain in one week. There was water running down off the rock ledge near Svelte Tiger that was running down the trail tread, across the trail to Sisyphus down across Svelte Tiger again. A ditch was installed with a big settling pond to hopefully catch future heavy rain from hitting the trail tread on Svelte Tiger. A culvert on Sisyphus was put in to alleviate some of the mud that was happening due to people not staying off the trails when they were wet. Bone Spur received a culvert to hopefully mitigate those water issues. Sore Elbow received a lot of rolling grade dips to prevent water running straight down the trail tread.

After repairing a lot of water damage this spring KSA Built moved to the pedestrian trails. Backstairs was rerouted to get it off the fall line as it was eroding heavily. Middle Giorgetti and Lower Giorgetti both received a lot of TLC to help with drainage.

Global Action Sports Solution was here the month of June refining many of our older generation trails by installing rolling grade dips. We rebuilt the upper part of Svelte Tiger as it’s a very heavily traveled trail and needed more love than 3 core volunteers could make happen.

VT Youth Conservation Corp (VYCC) was here in mid-July. One of the hottest weeks we’ve ever had to do trail work in. The crew was excellent in moving dirt to help repair Underdog. It’s taken 3 years of repair work to Underdog which was built in 2006.

Youth Works-a Christian based organization that had been here for 14 year in a row were back since the pandemic. We had two crews one from Maine and the other one from PA. These folks come to Rutland for service projects. I don’t think moving dirt is anywhere on their radar till they get to us which is generally the first day. But they are all troopers and do a great job. We had some 4,5,6th graders from PA that were tiny but mighty!

Memberships and contributions all go back into the trails. Please consider joining or making a contributions. It’s what keeps are park in great shape.

Slowly making progress on the universal trail that will be be near Lower Giorgetti. It’s a slowly developing project with wetland delineation now completed. An archeological study will be done before the grant we have applied for is fully approved.

Thank You Friends !

Our Community Work day on Saturday was a big success thanks to our dedicated volunteers. We helped the Master Gardner’s in mulching the front entrance gardens and made great progress on rebuilding the natural fence on Escalator.

Many hands made light work and we are very grateful.

If you couldn’t make it this time, we have another work project on June 21 to build a new bike skills feature area just off Birches trail. Save the date and stay tuned for more details.

Carriage Trail is closed

UPDATE: May 11, 2026. Carriage Trail is still closed.

Due to logging on the Proctor Library lands, the Carriage Trail is closed from Resting Brook to Proctor. Please respect this trail closure by staying off the trail.

Loggers are using heavy mechanized equipment and we do not need to hinder their progress.

Our understanding is the Carriage Trail will be closed until fall of 2026. Loggers will continue to work through the winter and spring.

Thank you.

Community Work Day

Community Work day, Saturday, May 3rd from 9am-12pm. We have several projects we will be working on. Helping Master Gardner’s in the front entrance and the natural fence on Escalator. The natural fence posts have been installed by GE Aerospace volunteers. GE also cut some saplings for us to weave on Saturday, May 3rd.

Many hands make light work hope to see you there.

Bring water, gloves, sunscreen and bug dope.