THE START
TRAIL BLAZING “He alone who is joined to the horizon can build new roads.”
—Adonis, from Celebrating Childhood There is a massive public works effort underway across Vermont which you have probably not heard about. Miles of paths are being cleared, new trails carved into hillsides, overgrown Class IV roads mapped and old rail beds rehabbed. By the time you finish reading this issue, there will be at least one new section of mountain bike trail built somewhere in the state and, by the end of the month, probably dozens. The Kingdom Trails, Stowe and Millstone have long been the hotbeds of trail building. But new networks are popping up around the state, from Poultney to Ascutney, Rochester to Waterbury. If you took the paved roads and highways off the state map but left just trails, you would see spiderwebs of networks creeping out from village hubs. A number of factors are powering this boom. Trail building is in our blood. Whether it’s cutting a path for a secret ski trail or opening up an old road for mountain biking, Vermonters have been quietly forging private trail networks for years, some legally–others, not so much. Now, organizations such as Kingdom Trails, other chapters of Vermont Mountain Bike Association, the Catamount Trail Association, the Rochester Sports Trails Alliance and the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers are working with landowners to gain legal access. They have also helped harness, train and fund weekend trail crews. And some of those volunteers have built their skill sets and have become pros. Three of the top mountain bike trail builders in the East all call Vermont home, and Brian Mohr tells their stories on page 20, The "Trail Crew." Trail building has, in a word, become big business for Vermont. In the last month, new downhill trails have come online at Killington and Okemo Resorts. Stowe Mountain Resort has permits to build a mountain bike network and Suicide Six’s new lift-served downhill trails are already designed and will start coming online next summer. Unlike the road system state and federal governments spend millions to maintain, these pathways are not designed to get anyone from point A to point B faster,
IT’S TIME FOR SUMMER ADVENTURES! Stop by for hooch before you go.
Brewery opens every day at 11:30AM for LUNCH + SUPPER or to carry freight. But they do increase economic development. Kingdom Trails alone brings in $16 million a year to the Burke community. According to a study published last fall by the Vermont Trails & Greenways Council, out-of-state visitors to our major trails (Long Trail, Catamount, VAST, Kingdom Trails) spend about $30.8 million a year. As trail builder Hardy Avery says about one of his projects: "It's located in a very rural area that is seeing an economic and population decline to the point where schools are almost closing and residents are finding it hard to stay in the area. I believe that expanding recreational opportunities can help foster a healthier community." Trails are bringing new blood and new money to these towns. They have become destinations and place makers unto themselves. Each trail is a route that begs to be discovered. And, on knobby tires, to be ripped, shredded and sent. This month, Olivia Pintair, a high school junior from Williston and a friend announced they were going to run across Vermont in an effort to raise $5,000 for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants of Vermont. The path the young runners, chose? The Cross Vermont Trail, a work in progress, that includes sections of the old Montpelier Wells Rail Trail. That trail—as well as the anticipated Lamoille Valley Rail Trail and the developing XVT mountain bike trail—may soon join Vermont’s other legendary traills (the Long Trail and the Catamount Trail) as rites of passage, trails that beckon and challenge us to always look at the horizon. —Lisa Lynn, Editor
AUGUST 2017 | VTSPORTS.COM 5