Yough River Bike Trail Council

We want to share the good news to all our YRTC membership. Each year, YRTC has teamed up with other organizations to do Christmas Eve deliveries to our local police dept., ER, EMS, and State Police barracks. We were fortunate to have the Connellsville Lions Club, Rotary Club of Connellsville, Connellsville Area Community Ministries, Somerset Trust Bank, and the Christian Church of Connellsville join us this year. Because of the added funds from all the groups and individuals,... we were also able to purchase 30 ten dollars gas cards for each of the 5 local volunteer fire companies in our area. I also made an appeal to Sheetz Inc. and they joined us by donating 30 ten dollar cards. Along with all that, we also delivered Christmas Eve lunch to the Connellsville Municipal workers and Christmas Eve breakfast items to our Connellsville Post Office workers. All in all we delivered over $2000 worth of food and gift cards. Don’t tell me that this isn’t FANTASTIC!! As I’ve always said, if I hear someone badmouth Connellsville I’ll slap them silly. Also, thank you to all the members who contributed to our gifts to the trail volunteers. We were able to give them a nice gift this year. Thank you for all the support and have a happy holiday season. Stay healthy Ted Kovall, YRTC President EDIT 12/24. I apologize that I forgot to list the Bullskin Lions Club as a contributor- sorry

We had an incident on the trail near the Ohiopyle gate in Connellsville. A number of years ago a large truck took out our wooden fence that separates the trail from the Triggs stained glass factory parking lot and we replaced the fence with cement barriers used for walls and highway protection. It works most of the time but every once in awhile a truck will bump into one of them and move it out of place. That can be moved back fairly easily with our tractor but this time, the... trailer of the truck must have caught one and pulled it away from the trail and spun it completely around. One of our volunteers, Dave Karwatsky, brought our larger tractor over to the site and moved the block back into place. It took some time and some calculations because it is too heavy to lift and pushing it just so without upsetting it takes some doing. Eventually, Dave was able to complete the job and now the wall is complete again. If you know Dave, give him an "ATTABOY". He "done good"!!! See more

Today, the Williams Co. came to YRTC’s rescue and finished staining the West Yough bridge. Nine of their employees volunteered to come early this morning and do the painting that the YRTC volunteers couldn’t finish due to weather and other efforts that took their time. Michele Duke of Williams Co. has arranged for this day of volunteering for the past several years and they have stained our Ohiopyle bridges (many times) and the fences and shelters in Connellsville. They provi...de the supplies and man power (person power?) and we just watch. I’m attaching pictures of the work crew and finished project to this email. If you know someone who works for Williams Co., give them a big pat on the back - virtually - and tell them thanks. Thanks, Michele and Williams Co. Ted Kovall, YRTC President

I have been walking on the bike trail since the late 1990's. Some years I was on it more than other years. I got more involved in the 2nd decade of the 2000's. ...In all that time, until today, I had never seen a bald eagle, tho I saw stories of sightings by others. Eagle-eyed (pun there) Cheri saw it just floating around the sky, very casually. This is the best pic she got... as it kept going higher in the sky. Very awesome See more

The River Trail Council(RTC) is the parent group to which our local YRTC belongs. Many of you are familiar with the beautiful bridge renovation that our volun...teers along with members from the RTC recently completed. The RTC owns the bridge which makes it private property- there for the enjoyment of everyone. The RTC is a non-partisan organization and for that reason and for the reason of keeping the bridge area unmarred and beautiful, no one is allow to post any kind of signs- advertisements, political- anything. We are asking that no one post anything on this lovely structure- remember it is private property and for everyone. See more

"Rain" they said but rain..it did not. 178 folks registered for our annual event as well as a record number of walkers. Bugs were bad at the park but not so bad at Camp Carmel, from what our volunteers reported. As usual many bikers did both ends of the ride with the turnarounds being at River's Edge campground and Camp Carmel. Camp Carmel folks noted there was more colorful foliage this year than usual, as well as many areas of falling leaves serenely falling to the ground.... Thanks to Bud Murphy's of Connellsville for providing the box lunches. Thanks to all who participated and of course the volunteers who keep it together. Phyllis Kovall posted: Today was our 26th annual Fall Foliage Ride/Walk event and it was outstanding!!! First of all the rain held off and the colors of the fall leaves were exceptional this year. We had a total of 178 participants( 169 riders and walkers and a few people who bought lunch only). Everyone seemed to love our choice of orange(pumpkin colored) shirts this year. Since we couldn’t do our traditional picnic buffet lunch Bud Murphy’s was gracious enough to provide for us at no cost a delicious bagged lunch of a large turkey/cheese sandwich with lettuce and tomato, a bag of chips and a container of fresh fruit. Lion Tammy Hart made and boxed 170 containers of her amazing cookies and the YRTC bought bottled water for everyone. We split the proceeds of this ride between the YRTC and the Connellsville Lions and it is looking like each group will get around $1,500- not bad for a year when we are dealing with a pandemic. We also need to thank all of sponsors for donating money or gift cards for this event- we couldn’t do it without them. See more

The West Yough Bridge overlook was vandalized last night. Someone broke off a lot of the solar lights that our volunteers installed. If anyone saw the person(s) who was doing this, please let us know ASAP. The PA State Police were notified and report given. Sad.