Youth mountain bike group checking it out.
Category Archives: Video
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!
Maximum Capacity
July 20th Update: Maximum Capacity is complete and still closed. VYCC crew #5 did a great job in building this trail. They came in not knowing what they were getting into fully and came out seasoned trail builders understanding how to build a complete trail from scratch.
We will have a grand opening for this trail. We’re just not sure when. Stay tuned to social media and our webpage for updates.
The crew built 5 huge banked corners, two French drains under two of our banked corners. We built rock ride overs to protect tree roots or help to raise the trail tread in low places. Moved TONS of rocks literally. We taught them finish work how to build rolling grade dips complete with out-slope or in-slope a trail for drainage.
This rock weighed probably 800-1000 lbs. We dug it out and replaced it into a banked corner.
The crew members are from all over the US, college students needing a summer job.
The work was hard, dirty and wet a few days but luckily we did not lose any days to poor weather. Even the mosquitoes didn’t carry us away. The spongy moths were buggers the first week in the caterpillar stage 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.
June 27th Update: VYCC has been here for one week and will be here until July 8th working on Maximum Capacity and hopefully Bone Spur. They are camping at the Community Center feeding all the mosquitoes.
Anyone who likes to make cookies or brownies VYCC would be grateful recipients.
The trail is CLOSED until it is completed and the trail tread has time to set up.
Folks have been hearing about Maximum Capacity for over a year now. The trail is coming to life with Killington Mountain School back in May and currently with YES Plan (Rutland High School students) in early June. The students have done a great job in removing organic material. We will continue to work on this trail with YES Plan and VT Youth Conservation Corp to hopefully have it open by the end of July. The trail is approximately 2500′ long.
If you have flexible hours and would like to help with finish work let us know. This is where we do all the raking to create a sustainable trail tread. Send pinehillpartnership@gmail.com an email for more details. We do have a lot of trail broken open that needs finish work so many hands make light work.
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
Why we leave leaves
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.
A new Video Guide to Pine hill park
Its always very gratifying when one of our visitors raves about the character of our hand-built trails — all done with a lot of volunteer time and sweat, we might add! It’s even better when they record and share it for other potential visitors too.
Niko Huber has done a great job creating a video guide to Pine Hill Park and its well worth your time to check it out. While you’re at it maybe hit his subscribe button. It looks like he’s planning to do more videos of other mountain biking venues soon!
Thanks for a great job Niko. We hope to see you back in the park soon !
Evergreen Fall + RHS X-C Team = UPGRADE!
A huge thanks going out for an awesome job by the Rutland High Cross-Country team. Evergreen Fall ( a favorite training route for the team) is now a great trail not only for hiking & running but mountain biking too. Lots of improvements in drainage were also part of the upgrade.
Check it out on your next trip to the park and think of all the hard work these folks donated today to get it done.
Thank you Team!
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Please no leaf removal
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 for your cooperation.
2017 Winter on Redfield Trails
Pine Hill Park▽YES Plan 2014
This video was created by a member of the Rutland High School Year End Study’s (YES) Plan.
The people in this film are in the Mountain Bike and Trail Development, a program that can be chosen when selecting a YES Plan.