THETFORD — The nonprofit Thetford Trails Team is raising $100,000 to buy and conserve 93 acres in the center of the Union Village Dam trail network.
The parcel is surrounded by more than 900 acres owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and forest to the north. It’s a key connection point for several trails open for activities including running, hiking, biking, hunting and skiing.
“That parcel is critical to all the connections in the network and then it allows us to steward the trail network in a more comprehensive way,” Thetford Trails Team Secretary Krista Karlson said Monday.
If the trails team can buy the land and secure a conservation easement with the Vermont Land Trust, the property will have long-term protection and the committee can manage it in a more “consistent” and “holistic” way with the rest of the network, Karlson said. It would be the first property the team owns.
While the Thetford Trails Team has a standing agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers to maintain the trail network where it crosses federal property, the group has to seek permission to perform trail maintenance on privately-owned lots.
The 93-acre parcel is currently owned by Texas-based oil-and-gas company Russell T. Rudy Energy.
Without a formal stewardship agreement, Karlson said the committee can’t regularly maintain sections of trail that cross the property. Some sections have erosion problems or might need “small reroutes just to minimize environmental impact.”
The parcel is also a key connection point for wildlife in Thetford between multiple forested lots and the two branches of the Ompompanoosuc River, Karlson said.
The trails team first contacted the landowner about a year ago to discuss the role of the group and the trail network and “over time that evolved” into discussions about buying the lot, Karlson said.
The Texas-based company, whose former owner bought the property in 1984, was excited to hear from the Thetford Trails Team about selling the land, Michael Herrin, senior landman for Russell T. Rudy Energy, said Monday.
The company’s former owner, Ellis Rudy, who died in 2019, bought the lot from the Army Corps of Engineers in 1984 as an investment property, likely without realizing it was landlocked, Herrin said. After Rudy wasn’t able to get a right-of-way to access the property, Herrin said the company has held the land and not done much with it since.
It held some sentimental value for the family, including Rudy’s son, Russell, who took over the company before his own death in 2025 and had traveled to Thetford to hike and hunt on the lot. Now, the company is working to “thin out” some real estate, including the property that is the only land it owns outside of the Gulf Coast region, Herrin said.
“We’ve actually pursued trying to sell this for a while,” Herrin said, including talking with Upper Valley real estate agents and sending letters to neighbors.
“They’re going to get what they want and we’re going to get what we want,” Herrin said of the possible sale.
The team and the company have signed a contract that gives the Trails Team until the end of the year to buy the land, Karlson said. So far, the group has raised about $60,000 and is seeking more donations online at https://thetfordtrailsteam.org/donate/.
Though the committee can purchase the land for $50,000, Karlson said it’s very important that it raise another $40,000 to $45,000 for management and maintenance of the property and to cover taxes, transaction fees and costs associated with securing the conservation easement.
“It would give us the ability to steward the parcel to the best of our ability in a responsible way and not have to cut corners with costs,” Karlson said.
