Building the Skidmarks trail with Phil Kmetz and Hailey Sarausky
Phil and Hailey are Vermont-based mountain bike trail builders and Oboz Footwear Ambassadors. They have a combined 10+ years of experience in trail building and brought those skills to Bolton, VT. to create the "Skidmarks" trail.
We talked with Phil and Hailey to learn more about sustainable trail building and how it was incorporated in this new trail build. Not only is it built thoughtfully, but, Skidmarks also showcases all types of terrain including flowy rollers, optional rock features, and berms.
Read on for the story behind the creation of the Skidmarks trail and more on what it means to build sustainable trails.
Behind the making of the iconic Driving Range trail network
Q: To kick it off, where is Skidmarks located?
A: Skidmarks is located in Bolton, VT at a trail network called The Driving Range. This network is part of the Vermont Mountain Bike Association (VMBA) run by the chapter Richmond Mountain Trails (RMT).
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Q: To set the stage for readers to understand the full scope of The Driving Range and tell us a little bit about the trail network.
A: Ha, where to start! I think it’s important to highlight how quickly The Driving Range materialized into a mountain bike network. Summer of 2022 Phil and I started going to volunteer trail work nights and at that point volunteers had built half of the lower climb. By the end of the season, the lower climb was completed, and the upper climb was being roughed in - all by volunteers. That fall, a trail builder was hired and by the spring of 2023 volunteers had built the climb all the way to the top. Professional trail builders were hired and by summer of 2024 The Driving Range had roughly 6 miles of trail. A key component of these 6 miles though is that they are all adaptive mountain bike ready, meaning, every trail in the network can be ridden by 2-4 wheeled bikes.
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Q: Where does building Skidmarks story fit into the timeline?
A: Phil and I broke ground on building Skidmarks in the spring of 2023. However, the process started in the winter of 2022 when we asked RMT if we could build a trail at The Driving Range for free. At the time, we didn’t think we would be taken seriously but to our surprise we were given the green light to go once the snow melted.
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Q: Awesome! So, you got the green light to build. How do you decide where to put the trail, there are almost endless places it could go. Did the fact that the trail had to be adaptive accessible influence your decision?
A: In April of 2023 we walked the network with RMT and they were originally going to have us build the trail that is now known as Heavy Duty (blue flow). Keeping in mind that Phil and I had not built with the mini-excavator anywhere outside of our backyard. Naturally they wanted to start us out in a zone that allowed them to set parameters while also setting us up for success. While hiking the network, RMT mentioned they were avoiding the middle area because it was too steep. Immediately, alarm bells went off and we had to take a look at that zone for ourselves. A few weeks later we had a trail flagged and approved to build in the zone that was “too steep”. Fun fact, when Phil and I scouted where to build Skidmarks we started at the bottom and already had a general idea where we wanted to hike. Right away we found a cliff band that had been blasted and made a natural benched section. Upon instinct we started putting flags in the ground as we hiked up so we could remember where we had already scouted. In that first pass we came out of the woods exactly where we needed to be and after hiking around a bit we realized there was no need to change what we already had. The majority of the Skidmarks trail that exists today was flagged on the first try.
Did the trail needing to be adaptive accessible influence our decision? Somewhat, yes, but not because we were concerned about it being too difficult. Adaptive riders can ride difficult trails so we weren’t interested in building something tame. Skidmarks has big features on the trail that in order to link up we had to make sure the main line could be built in a way that an adaptive rider could also have a great time on the trail. We got lucky that the main line we scouted linked up perfectly with the features.
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Q: What influenced you to become a part of The Driving Range and build Skidmarks?
A: In April of 2022 a friend and RMT board member invited us to hike the area before any trail work started. While hiking we were told that the network would focus on only building blue to black level trails and were hooked. The Driving Range is unique in its bedrock structure and not many places in Vermont are accessible to these types of cliff bands without hiking up above 2,000ft of elevation. This set up a perfect storm scenario; Steep unique terrain and a group of riders who wanted challenging trails - sign us up! The influence for building Skidmarks really blossomed once we scouted the terrain we were interested in building. In the Summer of 2023 we had the opportunity to ride Sentier Du Moulin in Quebec as well as Whistler in British Columbia and we saw the excitement, progression and crowds those types of trails brought in. With the right opportunity, we wanted to bring a bit of that style to the trails in Vermont.
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Q: So cool! What was your overall experience? Are you going to build more trails? Any shout outs?
A: Overall experience 10/10. Phil and I have been building together for 9+ years and we have a knack for vollying ideas, solutions, techniques off each other, it’s really fun. We are planning on building more trails! Ideas are in the works for trail building so hopefully more info to come. Massive thank you to Richmond Mountain Trails for literally handing over the keys and allowing Phil and I to craft a trail. We built Skidmarks completely as volunteers and took on a massive project for our first public trail. The community of volunteers at The Driving Range really stepped up to help support when we needed extra hands.
Lastly, thank you to Oboz for making footwear that withstood the abuse! Trail building often means 6+ hours on your feet daily, hiking unmanicured terrain and existing in nature where weather is always a factor. Phil’s shoes of choice were the Oboz Yellowstone and Oboz Bozeman. Hailey’s shoes of choice were the Oboz Yellowstone and the Oboz Katabatic Mid Waterproof.
