Out & About: Hartland Winter Trails celebrates 50 years

Hartland Winter Trails Association board member Sandy Gmur, second from left, helps Hartland Elementary fourth graders, from left, Lauren Driscoll, 9, Wilson Nash, 9, and Ellis Joslin, 9, gain confidence on cross country skis during a lesson on the school grounds in Hartland, Vt., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. The Hartland Winter Trails Association is celebrating its 50th anniversary this winter and providing ski lessons to all the kindergarten through eighth grade school’s students with help from a New England Nordic Skiing Association grant. (Valley News - James M. Patterson)

Hartland Winter Trails Association board member Sandy Gmur, second from left, helps Hartland Elementary fourth graders, from left, Lauren Driscoll, 9, Wilson Nash, 9, and Ellis Joslin, 9, gain confidence on cross country skis during a lesson on the school grounds in Hartland, Vt., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. The Hartland Winter Trails Association is celebrating its 50th anniversary this winter and providing ski lessons to all the kindergarten through eighth grade school’s students with help from a New England Nordic Skiing Association grant. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Valley News photographs — James M. Patterson

Charlotte Raney, 10, braces for a fall during a cross country ski lesson with volunteers from the Hartland Winter Trails Association at Hartland Elementary in Hartland, Vt., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Raney said she has some skiing experience and eagerly tested her limits during the lesson. (Valley News - James M. Patterson)

Charlotte Raney, 10, braces for a fall during a cross country ski lesson with volunteers from the Hartland Winter Trails Association at Hartland Elementary in Hartland, Vt., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Raney said she has some skiing experience and eagerly tested her limits during the lesson. (Valley News - James M. Patterson)

Hartland Elementary fourth graders Wilson Nash, 9, left, and Cooper Smith, 11, right, take a rest during a cross country ski lesson at the school in Hartland, Vt., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. The lesson was taught by volunteers from the Hartland Winter Trails Association which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this winter and maintains a free, public, 25 kilometer network of groomed trails on 30 private properties in the town. (Valley News - James M. Patterson)

Hartland Elementary fourth graders Wilson Nash, 9, left, and Cooper Smith, 11, right, take a rest during a cross country ski lesson at the school in Hartland, Vt., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. The lesson was taught by volunteers from the Hartland Winter Trails Association which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this winter and maintains a free, public, 25 kilometer network of groomed trails on 30 private properties in the town. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) James M. Patterson

By LIZ SAUCHELLI

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 02-01-2025 4:01 PM

Modified: 02-03-2025 9:55 AM


HARTLAND — Gary Trachier was a Hartford High sophomore and a member of the cross country ski team in 1974 when he and two teammates were looking for places to train.

Trachier, a Hartland resident, reached out to the late Henry Merritt, who had been building a trail on his property, and began using the loop. Then, Trachier and other volunteers started to add more miles to it each winter.

“There really wasn’t much thought into the future at all, taking it one day at a time, one winter at a time,” Trachier said in a phone interview. “You had absolutely no inkling of what it was to become.”

Fifty years later, that free trail system — known as Hartland Winter Trails — has expanded to more than 26 kilometers (16 miles) and about 30 landowners, and become a community fixture.

While the annual number of users is hard to gauge, Trachier’s younger sister, Andrea Ambros, who has been involved in the trail system for the majority of its 50 years, said on good snow weekends, she’s counted up to 40 cars in the main parking area at 50 Route 12, across the street from the Hartland Fire Station.

The nonprofit organization will celebrate its 50th anniversary from 2 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8 at its annual Tiki Torch Trek, which also serves as a fundraiser. Activities — including games, a bonfire, music, contests and food — will center around the trail system’s main parking area. Admission varies and tickets can be purchased in advance at hartlandwintertrails.org/upcoming-events/. The nonprofit has cross country skis and snowshoes available for people to borrow at a shed on 17 Lull Farm Lane.

For the majority of its existence, the trail system — which can only be used by skiers and snowshoers — was maintained by an informal group of about half a dozen volunteers who coordinated grooming the trails from December through March and completing maintenance projects such as cutting back tree branches in the warmer months.

“It started as a real shoestring operation,” said Trachier, the nonprofit’s trail director who oversees the trails and creates its maps. “It was always the same very small group of like-minded people.”

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Trail users donated money to help with costs such as gas for a snowmobile that pulled track setting equipment Trachier built himself. Volunteers used their own chainsaws in the summer.

About a decade ago, that small group of volunteers started thinking more about the trail system’s future and how to keep it going for the years to come.

The small group of volunteers, including Trachier and Ambros, decided to turn Hartland Winter Trails into a formal 501c3 nonprofit organization. The designation allowed the group to apply for grants that it previously could not access because of its informal structure.

Access to grant funds was especially important after rainstorms in 2023 devastated part of the trail network, Ambros, the nonprofit’s executive director, said.

The group applied for and received roughly $44,000 from the Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative community grant program in May 2024 to make improvements to the trail network.

The money allowed the group to purchase better equipment, including chainsaws, and to replace culverts to make the trails more resilient. Nowadays, it costs around $8,000 a year to operate the trail system, according to treasurer Katie Tucker.

A few years ago, Hartland Winter Trails purchased a John Deere Gator with a heated cab that volunteers use to pull track setting equipment. It takes about eight hours to groom all 26 kilometers, Trachier said. Younger and newer volunteers have stepped up to learn how to use it, which he takes as an encouraging sign for the future.

Another encouraging sign for the trail organizers is how willing and open landowners have been to allow the trails to run through their properties over the years — even as land has changed hands.

Part of the trail goes through Ambros’ property and she said she understands concerns landowners might have, such as the impact the grooming equipment, cross country skiing and snowshoeing may have on the soil.

“Without the landowners these trails would not exist,” she said.

If land is up for sale, Ambros talks to the sellers about talking the trail up to potential buyers. When land changes hands, she bakes a dessert and meets with the new owners to talk about the trails. She talks to them about the Vermont’s Landowner Liability Law, which protects landowners who open their land to the public for recreation.

“There’s less impact on soil if the maintenance of trails is done well,” said Jeanie McIntyre, president of the Upper Valley Land Trust, a Hanover-based nonprofit land conservancy.

The land trust is in the process of purchasing about 75 acres of land from the estate of Timotheus Pohl, which would protect the existing trails that cross the property in the future. The property sits near the busiest part of the trail network and near the Hartland Fire Station.

Volunteers are also working to grow and support youth Nordic skiing programs. This year, Hartland Winter Trails has partnered with the Lyme-based New England Nordic Ski Association’s Nordic Rocks program to teach children in grades K-8 at Hartland Elementary School to cross country ski during the school day.

Hartland Winter Trails also used a grant from the Killington World Cup Foundation Grant to purchase about two dozen sets of cross country skis that can strap onto kids’ regular snow boots.

“Every kid who has their snow boots for recess anyway can access the skis,” said Bethann Swartz, a parent who started volunteering with Hartland Winter Trails a couple of years ago.

She hopes to create an after school program for children at the elementary school to “get these kids exposure to what’s literally in their backyards.”

Swartz and her husband are avid skiers and have introduced their children, ages 4 and 6, to skiing at a young age. “The earlier they start it the more it becomes routine,” said Swartz. “I’m really hoping by them having access at school, with their friends, it will make it more fun.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.