META's Maine Trail Blog

Veratility Trail Challenge

The second annual VErsatility trail Challenge to Benefit META was held at Piper Ridge Farmin Limerick again this year. This year there is a series of 6 events with a year end award celebration (details to follow). Only the Piper Ridge event benefits META. The others are benefits for other causes and clubs. for instance the October event at Hearts and Horses in Buxton benefits their Theraputic Riding Program.

Watercat productions did the photography again this year. Be sure to browse arround their site and see more of their lovely work. Yup that's the META demo bridge put to use as an obsticle.

Check out this video of the Piper Ridge event from 2009 also by Watercats productions.

Seabgo to The Sea opens first 8 Miles of Trail

You're Invited!

 

Ribbon Cutting
First section of the Sebago to the Sea Trail

(Sebago Lake to South Windham)

October 2, 2010 @ 10:00am

Otter Ponds, Rte. 35, Standish

 

 
 
 

 

Work Day Volunteers?

We will meet at the trail head near the bottling plant at Killick Pond Road Friday Morning to put railings on two bridges connecting to California fields.

New Bridge to be railed.

Pine Land Stallion Show March 27, 2010

 

META will be at the Stallion Show At PineLand this Saturday. Besides the long list of amazing Stallions that will perform, there are 35 vendors listed as of this morning! Stop by the META table and support us with a raffle ticket purchase and your membership. Free t-shirts while they last with 2010 membership.

Download PFEC-StallionShowAd-v3

Mud Season

Mud season: A time to rejoice because spring is coming fast--with excellent riding and we're ALL just itchin' to get out on the trails! BUT please remember that Horses are not "Foot Traffic" and must stay off all trails that are closed for mud season, just like our fellow ATV riders and mountain bikers. I heard reports... of Equestrian users already this spring on the Down East Sunrise 'Posted' trail.

I’m sure in this case it is just a matter of confusion of the rules. I am working on getting the word out. We are making real headway in regards to acceptance and cooperation with diversified trail user groups. We must follow the rules that the land owners set and to do that we must all be aware of the rules. Please help me spread the word. If the land owners are not happy, trail users pay the price.

META's Bridge Materials Grant Program recieves $2,500.00 in Match Grant

Maine Equestrian trails Alliance is excited to announce that we have received a matching grant in the amount of $2500 for the Bridge Materials Grant Program. The terms set by our anonymous donor are: META  must raise an equal amount by July 1, 2010. Any form of fund raising, including the $20.00 from each membership that goes into the grant fund pool, cash donations, and fund raising events will count towards reaching the match goal.

For those of you who have not yet joined META, there is no better time than now. If you are already a member, please recruit a friend. The $20 that we dedicate to bridge materials from every $25 membership will now buy $40 worth of high quality bridge materials.

Also: Stay tuned for a fund raiser event near you. And please if you have any ideas or wish to help out by hosting a fundraising event, or have an event that would like help with in exchange for a donation, Let us know ASAP.

2010 -2011 Meeting Schedule in the works

The META Board of Directors has worked out an annual meeting schedule to consist of 6 meetings each year in different areas of the state. It is a challenge to engage our dispersed membership in an equitable way, in such a spread out state, but META is committed to this goal for 2010. Each county will be a semi independent META chapter. The chapters have been broken down into six districts. We have a plan to schedule six bi-monthly meetings with one hosted by each dist. We are working to engage those members who have expressed an interest in working to organize their Counties equestrian community in finalizing the details of each meeting. As of early March the progress is as follows:
For March, we are in the process of locating a spot in or near Ellsworth to have a hastily organized meeting in the Eastern District centered around a pot luck luncheon. If we can put that meeting together, be on the lookout for broadcast e-mails (another new capability for META) with meeting minutes if we were not able to let some of you know in time to attend. The Eastern Dist. Counties are Hancock , Washington, and Penobscot.
The May meeting will be hosted on Memorial Day weekend by the Pulpit Rock Trail Blazahs, a Western District member club. A long running ECTRA event that is always well attended is held each year at the Waterford Fair grounds. In addition to the three day competitive trail ride we will have a variety of trail loops available for use at any time during the weekend. These trails are both guided and marked. Camping is available for a small fee to benefit the Waterford Fair association. The exact meeting time will be announced soon. For details as they become available, please visit our web site. The Western Dist. Counties are Oxford, and Franklin.
The July and September meetings will be held in the Northern and Southern Districts respectively. As the farthest Districts from the center we gave them the two remaining good ride months so they can bait you to their meetings with riding opportunities. No details have been worked out at this writing, but the Southern District hopes to organize a pleasure ride on trails that will take you over the highest density of META bridges in a small area so far. Through above and beyond support and consideration for equestrian trail users in their area the Hollis Free Wheelers ATV club has upgraded a large number of old and new trails with horse safe bridges. They purchased our bridge materials using Federal grant monies. By charging a fair retail price META was able to re-invest the profits into more material. Twice the benefit from tax dollars, got to love it! Aroostook County is the North District. The Southern District Counties are York, Cumberland, and Androscoggin.
The November meeting will be hosted by the Central Dist. Somerset, and Piscataquis Counties.
The January 2011 meeting will be hosted by the Coastal Dist. It will be held in Augusta during the horseman’s trade show. The Coastal Dist. Counties are Sagadahoc, Lincoln, Knox, Kennebec, and Waldo.
We look forward to seeing old and new faces at the bi-monthly META meetings, and other events during the 2010 season. META is grateful to its die hard members who stick with us during our first years as work out the details of becoming as good at communication and organization as we are at building horse safe bridges and being your voice in governmental trail issues! It is you who make it ALL possible. META is at your service so please send us information on how we can best serve the trails needs in your area (we can’t fix what we don’t know is broken), And please attend a meeting this year in your region. There is power in numbers.
Leigh Libby
President: META

Bridge 2 of 3 is almost complete: Poland Springs Bottling Plant Hollis Maine

A 3rd stringer (10 x 10 pressure treated) was added down the center of the bridge between the telephones that run the edges. The telephone poles are still in excellent shape. The 2 inch decking was removed and 3 inch thick pressure treated was installed. The supports were reinforced as well.

There still must be a railing added to this bridge. If a horse were to change it's mind about crossing mid way and leap off the side, he / she would be mired in the shoulder deep muck, tall grass and swampy bottom. It would not be a good scene. We will be sending out an invitation to equestrians to volunteer to make short work of the project when the weather warms a bit this spring.

This shows what 3 inch decking looks like as compared to my size 9 feet. It's thicker than some of us with little carpentry experience realize.

Looking down on the decking you can see the 3 stringers through the gaps.

 

Here is a picture of what the bridge looked like before the upgrade. With no center stringer and 2 inch non pressure treated decking of unknown age it was not safe to cross on horses.

The snowmobile runners for the center on top of the decking were saved and may be replaced over the new 3 inch decking to save wear and tear from snowmobile track.

I cannot emphasize enough the fact that the 3 bridges on this trail were in perfect shape for ATV and Snowmobile use before upgrading. The Hollis Freewheeler's ATV club  paid for these upgrades. It is a sign of their great commitment to equestrian safety and desire for cooperation between trail user groups. You will often see ATV, equestrian, snowmobile users all working elbow to elbow on this trail system. It's a great feeling. Please ask us how we can help you foster these kind of relationships in your area.

Below are photos of the third and final bridge which will be upgraded in the spring to connect The trails around Killick Pond with California Fields on Plains Road:

Decking is showing far too much wear to be safe for a horse to step on, and again no 3rd center stringer.

 The opening of this trail to horses will greatly increase the riding opportunities throughout the entire ~500 acre Poland Springs fields and woodland from Plains Road to Killick Pond.

 

One of the trails near the bottling plant takes you along side the road where the truckers come in and out. The Speed limit is 35 MPH so the trucks are not very intimidating. Occasionally a trucker will stop and want to meet a horse like this young man from FLA did in June 2009.

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New bridge 1 of 3, Poland Springs Hollis Maine

This new bridge built by Scott Hatch META's own bridge expert, is on Hollis Freewheeler ATV Club maintained trail on Poland Spring Property. it is one of three bridges that are being upgraded to accommodate equestrian traffic between the bottling plant and California Field. The Hollis ATV club is so dedicated to horse safety that they purchased enough materials to upgrade / replace 5 bridges on the Hollis system of trails.