Category Archives: Volunteering

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

Exit Strategy repair

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UPDATE JULY 6th: Exit Strategy is now open.

UPDATE JUNE 14th: A mountain biker and runner felt they were entitled to run and ride on Exit Strategy despite the orange snow fencing saying the trail is closed. We have put in 220 volunteer hours to repair it for two people to basically set us back another couple of weeks before the trail can open.

UPDATE June 11: Exit Strategy has been repaired with new material added to the corners. Thank you YES Plan. The last day the two girls crushed it as their classmates decided to play hooky.

Thank you Omya for donating the crushed marble/quartzite material.

We are letting it firm up before the trail opens which hopefully will be in the next 2 weeks. Thank you for your patience.

Refurbishing corners

UPDATE as of Friday 5/31: Material is here and lots of it. Monday YES Plan will move as much as possible in a couple of hours. We will be holding a Community Work night Tuesday at 5pm. Come when you can to help us finish the repair work. Meet at the top of Exit Strategy with lots of bug spray and water.

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Monday, June 3rd we are hoping to repair the corners on Exit Strategy where the under lying material is ‘surepak’.

When Exit Strategy was built in 2013 we moved 17 tons of surepak into the corners for the foundation. We then covered those corners with dirt that was dug out from borrow pits. Between the heavy use Exit Strategy receives, the hard rains we’re getting and the people that felt it was ok to ride it when the trail was super fragile. The dirt is being eroded off so the surepak is starting to show.

We have material coming this week (5/27) that we hope will set up and provide a firm top coating. YES plan students will be moving the material on June 3rd but they are not allowed to run machinery. We will be using Nemo and buckets to move material.

What we’re really looking for is an adult(s) that can run the whacker packer and help with Nemo. YES plan runs from 9:30-1:30. If you could help us out for 4 hours great, only an hour or two-that’s great too. Please email pinehillpartnership@gmail.com.

Thank you!

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

OUR Trail Building Policy

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Pine Hill Park is unlike many other mountain bike trails systems in North America, and visitors from in- and out-of-state travel to the park to experience our unique trails. This unique character includes hand-made single-track, berms, drainages, and playful bridges through the Park’s hardwoods and quartzite boulders and ridges. Since trail-building began in 2003, trail builders have worked to maintain this unique user experience. As of 2019, Pine Hill Park’s 325 acres are almost at capacity for trails. But anyone with ideas to improve sections of trail is welcome to make a plan, then present the plan for approval to the land owner and steward.

To that end, please take a look at our Trail Building Policy page for more information on how you can help to improve the park.

Education, Fat Biking, Hikes, Meetings, Mountain Biking, Observations, PHP in the News, Programs, Trail Running, Trail Safety, Trail Updates, Trail Work, Uncategorized, Volunteering

Opportunities to volunteer

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Anyone is welcome to join us on these days. We will be working on the new trail that was started last year. Plus some maintenance work on other trails in the park.

YES Plan from Rutland High School will be in on these dates:

June 5th, meet at front entrance at 9:15

June 7th, meet at front entrance at 9:15

June 10th, meet at front entrance at 9:15

June 11th, meet at front entrance at 9:15

June 12th, meet at front entrance at 9:15

June 17th and 18th starts Youth Works. Meet at the front entrance at 9:15.

June 24th and 25th is Youth Works meet at front entrance at 9:15.

July 1st and 2nd is Youth Works meet at front entrance at 9:15

July 15th and 16th is Youth Works meet at the front entrance at 9:15

July 22 and 23rd is Youth Works meet at the front entrance at 9:15.


Pine Hill Partnership, Trail Work, Volunteering

you are the best. Thank you!

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Community Work Night, Tuesday, August 6th at 5pm. Bring a weed whacker, headlamp and water. It is National Night Out and we will meet at the end of Evergreen Ave. We will shuttle up to Rocky Pond to trim out the Carriage trail.

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We simply can’t express how awesome our volunteer community is in words, so we submit a video and a few stills to give you a sense of the turnout and the effort that was donated to your local trail system today.

Despite a cold rainy miserable morning, we had over 50 volunteers turn up to help us spiff up the front entrance and start to apply the TLC to our trails that make Pine Hill Park such a great place to play!

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Unfortunately we are still closed to bikes because of the unusually wet spring (and last fall) that has water settling on the trails in places we’ve never seen before. We had several crews out this morning working on cleaning drainages, and making some temporary measures to get us open just as soon as possible.

We’re so thankful for everyone who turned out to help the trails today. You are awesome individuals, and should feel PROUD !

Education, Meetings, PHP in the News, Pine Hill Partnership, Programs, Trail Updates, Volunteering

economic impacts of pine hill reported

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We had great Annual meeting on Monday, March 25th. A group of 50+ members and general public heard first hand about our accomplishments this past year and about some of our plans for 2019.

We also revealed the initial results of the user surveys and trail counter data collected between April 2018 and March 2019. Our conservative estimates are that the visitors to the Park contribute over $1.3 million to the Rutland area economy!

A discussion session led to lots of great ideas. Hopefully we can move forward with some of the great suggestions and enthusiasm that were present in the room!

We want to thank the following business and organizations that donated items for our raffle: MTBVT, Alpine Bike Works, Basin Ski Shop, First Stop Ski Shop and Killington Bike Park.

For more detail about the meeting you can read the Meeting Minutes and watch the PowerPoint Presentation. Vermont Public Radio reported about the meeting which you can listen to and read here.

Here’s to a great season of playing in the Park!

Cross Country Skiing, Education, Fat Biking, Hikes, Mountain Biking, Observations, Pine Hill Partnership, Programs, Trail Running, Trail Safety, Trail Updates, Trail Work, Uncategorized, Volunteering

Community Work Day

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UPDATE: April 26th, We are pushing start time back to 10AM in hopes the hard rain will have stopped. We still have projects that can be done in the damp. We need YOUR help. Thank you.

9AM at the front entrance of Pine Hill Park. We will be working to clean up the front entrance and do repair work to Exit Strategy. We have tools and gloves. Bring water and sunscreen.

Hikes, Mountain Biking, Pine Hill Partnership, Programs, Trail Running, Trail Updates, Trail Work, Volunteering

Community Work Days

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2024 Community Work Day: Saturday, April 27th-9AM-noon. We will do a little bit of work in the front entrance to help Master Gardner’s out. We also have some trail tread repair work on Overlook to improve drainage. Meet at Giorgetti parking lot. We have tools, bring water, bug dope, sunscreen and gloves. Thanks and hope to see you there.

Yes Plan dates are being set by Rutland High School teachers now. Yes plan runs from May 31st until June 14th. Please contact us if you have folks who would like to join us. pinehillpartnership@gmail.com

VYCC will be joining us the first two weeks in July. We could always use extra hands to work with local high school students in the park. Work day is Monday-Thursday from 8-4pm. For more information email: pinehillpartnership@gmail.com


Hikes, Mountain Biking, Pine Hill Partnership, Trail Running, Trail Work, Volunteering

Community work day

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Join us on Saturday, April 27th for our first trail day, 9AM at Pine Hill Park. We have a couple of projects to tackle. One is to repair Exit Strategy corners, clean drainage’s out and clean up the front entrance. Many hands make light work! Hope to see you there.

Education, Meetings, Mountain Biking, Pine Hill Partnership, Programs, Trail Updates, Volunteering

2019 Annual dinner Monday march 25, 6pm

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Dear Pine Hill Partnership Enthusiasts,

2018 was a great year on the trails. Please join us at our annual meeting to enjoy light dinner fare, a short recap of our projects and an introduction to our plans for 2019.

The meeting will start at 6pm, Monday, March 25th, at the Godnick Center at 1 Deer St. Rutland, VT.

We will have some excellent food including vegetarian fare to be consumed before the presentation. The meeting will begin with a short, required, business meeting. There will be a quick review of the 2018 accomplishments in the park and surrounding trails. We have a few guest speakers from surrounding trail systems giving us an update on their 2019 plans. Pine Hill Partnership will have some cool raffle prizes to give raffle off. Tickets are $5 each sold at the door. Afterwards, we plan to have an extended question and answer period and hope you will contribute ideas and suggestions that can be incorporated into the future Pine Hill Park trail projects, the Pine Hill Partnership organization itself, and surrounding trail networks.

As our organization grows, we are looking for a more diversified group to serve on a couple of committees. In particular, we have a fundraising project for 2019 and would like to make a concerted effort to increase our paid membership rolls. We are hoping some folks can join us on this project.

We are also looking for additional board members. The board generally meets six to eight times a year and we are looking for people with a range of interests. Some people might have a passion for trail work while others might have a focus on growing Pine Hill Partnership membership or on strategic planning. If you are interested in being a board member, please fill in the form below and include your qualifications and reasons why you would like to become actively involved in the Partnership so that we may share it with the membership before the annual meeting.

If you shop online and use Amazon please consider using www.smile.amazon.com. Amazon will make quarterly contributions to Pine Hill Partnership if you enter us as the non-profit.

Hope to see you there and big thanks for your support this year in our continued efforts to make these area trails so special.

Sincerely,

Andrew Shinn, Joel Blumenthal, Dave Jenne, Claus Bartenstein, Peggy Shinn and Shelley Lutz

Board of Directors

Bryan Sell

Executive Director

Hikes, Mountain Biking, Pine Hill Partnership, Trail Updates, Trail Work, Volunteering

Thank you Community Bank

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Community Bank gave us a very nice contribution this spring. We used it to purchase materials to build two benches for the park. Thank you to Augie Levins who built the benches and to all the other volunteers that helped move them.

One is located on Underdog powerline and the other one is on Droopy Muffin powerline. We have several other locations we would like to install the same type bench in the future.