TTC Captain: Hannah Puttcamp

This interview features Hannah Puttcamp, a college sophomore who was formerly on the Keystone Mountain Bike Team and now races for RPI Cycling. She became interested in trail stewardship through workdays at Lackawanna State Park, which started with her involvement in PICL and Girl Scouts. For her Silver and Gold Award projects, she worked on two significant trail stewardship efforts.

For her first project, "The Tunnel Trail," she created a safer connection between two trailheads by building a trail parallel to a road, reducing the need for cyclists to ride on the road. Her second project, completed during senior year as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award, involved repurposing an old hayfield into a trail area and reintroducing native flora with the help of various partners, including the Environmental Protection Agency and Master Gardeners. A major challenge during the second project was coordinating between different partners, all of whom had specific visions for the project.

Hannah invited teammates from the Keystone Mountain Bike Team to help with the trail-building, and she received great participation. The public benefited from the safer, more enjoyable trails, while the Trail Steward Seminar educated youth about conservation efforts. Personally, Hannah found great satisfaction in building trails that could potentially last longer than herself. Her leadership experience from these projects also helped her stand out in job interviews, such as for a P&G internship.

Hannah’s advice for PICL student athletes is to pursue trail stewardship, but to be prepared for the hardest part—securing permits and managing early stages. Once that phase is completed, the actual building is much easier and enjoyable. She encourages persistence and emphasizes the rewarding experience of building trails.

• Tell us about yourself.

  I'm a college sophomore and I was on the Keystone Mountain Bike Team when I raced for PICL.  I now race with RPI cycling. 

• How did you become interested in TTC or your trail stewardship?

  Since the first year, which was also the first year of PICL, my team did a lot of work days at Lackawanna State Park and the trail crew associated with them. So I was involved with TTC hours since my beginning in PICL.  I was also a Girl Scout and I wanted to help out the park with both my Silver and Gold award projects so I asked the park what I could do for those.

• What was your TTC Captain Project?

  My first project, which I also did concurrently to get my TTC Captain status, was called the Tunnel Trail and so it basically connects two trailheads that were only accessible via paved road by a trail that runs parallel to the road. We could get more cyclists off the road.  And then my second project I did my senior year and that was my Gold award. The Conservancy got a new plot of land that used to be an old farm hayfield and the farmer had put a lot of rock on it. This hill is actually the highest point in Lackawanna State Park and the surrounding conservancies. I took those rocks and made them into a landing and then I also reintroduced native flora to the area.

• What partners did you work with?

  For starters, there's the ground that you have to build on. I worked a lot with the Lackawanna State Park DCNR for my first project and I was given almost completely free rein. I just had little markers that I had to stick around for the trail build.

  For my Gold award project there were a lot of partners. I worked with the Environmental Protection Agency. They were the ones who got me the grant for the the native. Plants. And then, again, DCNR permission. There was also another group called the Master Gardeners. They helped me get the grant and they also helped me lead a four week Youth Stewardship Seminar for Trail Building, which is really good. But yeah, probably the biggest issue, especially with the Gold award project was just making sure every one of those groups is happy, because if you're coordinating between all those groups, they all have some vision for what the they want the project to look like and you have to make sure that you take the best parts of those visions and make sure they don't conflict. 

• How did the projects benefit the public and you personally?

  For the public, I think the Tunnel Trail is a really good example of that, to get people off of the road and into the woods and so it just connected it from point A to point B. So they got a pretty awesome trail with what used to be a pretty boring pedal. 

  And then for my gold award, we had the Trail Steward Seminar and we got a lot of youth in the area, a lot of people from Keystone Mountain Bike Team to learn more about what all goes into the park.

  So obviously there's trails, but there's a lot of, like conservation efforts associated with that. We did that by bringing back native plants. Especially because that area was actually all overgrown with Honeysuckle, which is invasive.

  And for the personal thing I just really enjoy building trails and knowing that I'm putting something in that in the right conditions can probably outlast me.  I landed an internship at P&G over the summer and a lot of the interview questions are very specific about asking about your leadership experience, what experiences do you have leading? It really helps me especially against people my age that don't really have that leadership experience.

• What recommendations do you have for PICL student-athletes contemplating a trail stewardship project?

  Definitely do it. There's always something that needs to happen, but just know that the first part of the project is always the hardest part. The presidents of the trail crew at Lackawanna State Park Trail crew and the Countryside Conservancy are very great people and they came to me with projects. I'm currently working on trying to get trails into where I go to college and that's proven very difficult because those initial stages like getting all permits approved. It's very time consuming and long and the fact of the matter is that the project might just get dropped, but just definitely push through that initial stage because that is the hardest. 

  Building is the easiest. Don't give up. It's difficult, it stinks that the hardest part is the first part, but after that it's smooth sailing and it's fun and you get to build a trail. It's sick.