28 | Snowmobile VERMONT TRAILS TRAILS REPORT REPORT by Matt Tetreault, VAST Trails Administrator In the last magazine, you were able to read a bit about Glastenbury Mountain and the folklore that surrounds the area. I hope you have marked this as a destination for your snowmobiling adventures for 2017/18. I was fortunate enough to visit the area back in June. The reason for my most recent trip to the area was to review some projects taking place on the USDA Forest Service lands that surround Glastenbury Mountain. VAST and the USDA Forest Service work together on multiple cost share/cooperative agreements in an effort to not only share in the funding of projects involving USDA Forest Service property and VAST snowmobile trails, but also in the oversight and management of the construction contracts. On this particular day in June, I was reviewing some bridge work on the Glastenbury trails with Shane from VAST, Shaftsbury Sno Pilots President Ryan Bottesi, USDA Forest Service staff and some potential contractors wishing to bid on the project. We all survived the trek into the woods and made it back out alive. We may have been a few pounds lighter, as the deer flies were able to feed nicely on each of us. There were no Bigfoot sightings to report, just deer and a number of campers enjoying the remote camping sites scattered throughout the area. leveled back out and have the railings installed onto it. There is also some rip-rap work to be completed in the river to armor the bridge from future issues. The bids for this work have come in and we are planning to get the contract out on this work soon so that the work can be completed before the snow flies again for the 2017/18 snowmobile season. Any of you who had the pleasure of riding in this area last winter would have noticed that the Glastenbury crossover trail was closed due to the issues with the bridge being twisted out of sorts. It should be back open and ready for use for all of the Bigfoot hunters out there. The Glastenbury Mountain trail is not the only trail that VAST is repairing in conjunction with the USFS this season. We also took a visit to Wallingford and the Homer Stone Meadows trail in late June. Shane, myself, President Walter Teer of the Green Mountain Climbers, USFS personnel and a couple of contractors made the journey to the bridge located on a small brook that drains a series of smaller beaver dams and ponds and eventually leads into Homer Stone Brook. The Homer Stone Meadows trail as it is duly named, is located within the Robert T. Safford White Rocks National Recreation Area Management Area. This area is yet The projects being reviewed were a couple of bridges that are part of the Glastenbury snowmobile trail network in the area. One of the bridges, a 34-foot telephone pole bridge has been in place for a number of years and is in need of replacement. Although the bridge has served its purpose over the years, you can certainly feel the deflection in the telephone poles as you walk across it. Steel beams will be installed in place of the telephone poles and will hopefully serve this trail system well for the next 50 or more years. The second bridge site was located a short distance from the bridge previously mentioned. The current bridge is structurally sound, but it has twisted somewhat and needs to be This bridge in Glastenbury was built on old telephone poles which will soon be replaced with steel beams.