BDN, Ellsworth American report mountain bike trail named after civil engineering capstone

UMaine Alert

Posted: April 19, 2024 - 1:32 PM

At approximately 9:24 a.m. on Friday, April 19, a University of Maine graduate student was struck by a university vehicle on Long Road at the University of Maine campus in Orono. The student reports that they are at a local hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services, including the Orono Fire Department, University Volunteer Ambulance Corps, University of Maine Police Department, Orono Police Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

The university vehicle involved in the incident was a Chevrolet Express van. It was being operated by a university employee.

Counseling services and support are available for students, faculty or staff who may have been affected. The Counseling Center can be reached at 207-581-1392 and the Dean of Students Office can be reached at 207-581-1406.

The scene has been cleared and Long Road is now accessible. An investigation is being conducted by the University of Maine Police Department with assistance from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office Crash Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses to the incident are encouraged to contact Lt. Noel Santiago at noel.santiago@maine.edu.

June 18, 2019 Outreach, UMaine in the News

Bangor Daily News and The Ellsworth American reported on construction of Hancock County’s first significant mountain bike trail. The Capstone Trail is part of an eventual 3.6-mile trail that will climb Great Pond Mountain in the Great Pond Mountain Conservation Trust’s 4,500-acre Wildlands in Orland, said Landon Fake, the trust’s executive director. The Penobscot Region of the New England Mountain Bike Association has been collaborating with the land trust for two years on trail development and this spring secured more than $20,000 in funding, according to the articles. Fake said the trail name references a capstone project that several University of Maine civil engineering students completed in 2016 in the form of a design and proposal to the land trust for a trail network. “We dug up that 121-page report and decided to use it for our conceptual trail system,” said Craig MacDonald, president of the regional mountain bike association. UMaine alumni Avery Mornis and Lucas Wardwell, two of the proposal’s authors, heard about the association’s project and decided to help, Fake said. Wardwell, whose family lives in Orland, did much of the first layout and hand work. Mornis, who works for a trail construction company in Vermont, agreed to get time off to run an excavator on the project for a couple of weeks, the articles state.