View online

December 2025
News From the Trail

From the Chair

Celebrating 2025 and Looking Ahead to 2026

I’m filled with gratitude for the passion and professionalism with which our volunteer board members and community volunteers give of their time and their treasure, to work on completing and enhancing our beloved Tahoe-Pyramid Trail. Along with trail work, we’ve been expanding the Board of Directors and engaging highly-qualified volunteers to help with key work projects. We’re almost halfway through our three-year strategic plan and having additional talent, combined with quarterly sequential goals and activities, is really paying off. Here’s a forward glimpse of some of the major work coming up in 2026.

We will shortly be installing our most ambitious kiosk monument sign in Idlewild Park to honor past supporters and to share the history of the trail. The monument will feature comprehensive information on the TPT and will be in a location sure to be seen by thousands. We are also moving forward with two capital projects in 2026 - two paving projects; one at the Farad trailhead parking area and another at the Mogul-Verdi link. The project at Farad, about halfway between Truckee and Reno, will feature a restroom. We are also continuing our efforts for laying out an alternate trail route from Verdi to Mayberry Park that will more closely align with the river. We have scheduled a kick-off meeting with NDOT in December for the feasibility study to complete the remaining closed sections of the trail between Sparks and Wadsworth (an article on this will be coming out in January). As you can see, we are truly ramping up to bring some of the most impactful projects in the history of the trail, all made possible due to the support you and others provide to ensure that we have the fuel necessary to power our trail maintenance, improvement, and development work.

As we approach the holidays and end of the year, if you have not yet given this year, please join us by being a Century Circle donor with a gift of $100 or more. Please click on this link to donate today.

Donate Today!

If you’d like to get involved, please email me at caskin@tptrail.org. Thanks again.

~ Chris Askin, Chair of the TPT Board

Closing Out 2025 and Looking to 2026

The TPT had an eventful year in 2025. In August, we hired a new employee, Catherine Escamilla, to coordinate our trail maintenance and volunteers. Catherine has already organized multiple volunteer events and spent hundreds of hours maintaining the trails, installing new signage and two new trail counters: one at the Verdi to Mogul link and another east of Fleish Bridge in California. Our third and final trail counter for 2025 is planned for installation in a section of the Mustang to USA Parkway section of the trail. As trail counters are deployed, they will help us better understand the frequency of trail use and, over time, how that trail use affects the need for maintenance.

This year we jumped into the 21st Century by implementing a Client Relationship Management (CRM) system to vastly improve our ability to stay better connected to our donors, stakeholders and volunteers. It’s a huge technological improvement to the old spreadsheet system we have been using for over 20 years.

We conducted extensive outreach in the community from filming a podcast for Wild Nevada with PBS Reno’s Dave Santina to tabling at 10 local events and providing five public presentations including our Annual Meeting at the McKinley Arts & Culture Center. Our presence was felt this year at meetings and events all along the trail from Truckee to Reno to Nixon and to Fernley.

For 2026, the Budget we developed includes design and preparation for several exciting new projects - we plan to make several improvements to the trail; repaving of the Mogul-Verdi Link; repaving and installation of a restroom at the Farad parking area; purchasing and installing three additional trail counters; and researching two potential trail realignments - one east of the Fleish Bridge and the other near the Waltham Way parking area mid-way between Mustang and USA Parkway trail section.

Please let me know if you have an event in 2026 you would like us to attend, or if you need a speaker and presentation for your organization. Thanks for your continued interest and support of the TPT and we look forward to seeing you on the trail.

~ Mark Cameron, President/CEO

Tailwind Stories

The End of Another Year

The years keep flying by and before I knew it, my “Reno” family and I were sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at our house. I gave thanks that day my turkey wasn’t dry, even though it was done way too soon!! I am not a cook and I was thrilled that my friends who sat around that table didn’t run out of gravy! My wish for next year is that Jack hosts! Already planning for next year.

As you can see from the articles by Chris Askin, our Board Chair, and Mark Cameron, our CEO and President, we have been busy with many activities and planning for our next year and for the years to come.

Some of my favorite activities in 2025 included meeting the people who support the TPT. This includes our board members, volunteers and staff. I met people at the Verdi Hydropower Plant tour this spring, people who stopped by our table at the many events we were at, especially the Sierra Vista Bike Festival. We had a great turnout at our annual biking events, the “Cookie Ride” and “Ride the Rez”. Our annual Photo Contest entries were amazing. More to come on that via social media and the January newsletter. Also, congratulations to the people who joined the “93 Mile Club”. It just reminds me of the reason this trail is so important to our community.

Mike Rowe wrote “I’m looking forward to the future, and feeling grateful for the past.” I find that a beautiful way to end the year. Have a safe New Year and I hope to see you along the TPT in 2026.

~ Mary Beth Roselli, Past Chair of the TPT Board

100% Giving Board Award from the Community Foundation of Northern Nevada

Since 2008, the Community Foundation of Northern Nevada has recognized local non-profits with board members who provide financial support to their organizations. In 2008, they recognized 13 non-profits. This year, the number has grown to 114. This includes 1,282 members donating $8,757,256. Our local charities depend on these general philanthropic board members to continue their work. These non-profits include organizations that support the arts, provide food and shelter to those in need, promote environmental causes, support health and welfare, promote the outdoors, and many other causes that non-profits work to strengthen our communities.

All Tahoe-Pyramid Trail board members are not only generous with their time but also with their donations. They believe in the value this trail provides to our community, which is why we are honored to receive the 100% Giving Board Award. We would like to thank the Community Foundation of Northern Nevada for recognizing us among the other 113 organizations for this award in 2025.

~ Mary Beth Roselli, Past Chair of the TPT Board

We are so grateful for our Donors!

Please join us in thanking the generous major donors who contributed so far in 2025. Their extraordinary generosity and commitment to the TPT powers our mission and contributes greatly to the enjoyment and experience of trail users.

The most significant gifts are recognized at the Builder’s Circle level (gifts of $5,000 or more). We thank the E.L. Cord Foundation, Laura Brigham & Brian Beffort, the Cynthia Lake Charitable Trust, the Tahoe-Truckee Community Foundation, and our own board member Bill von Phul & Lynda Knepper.

Donors to the Millennial Circle (gifts of $1,000 to $4,999) include Dick Benoit, the Edwards Family Foundation, Clay & Carolyn Grubb, David & Dawn Ligon, the Roth Torgan Charitable Fund, Frank G. Scafidi, and Joseph Stuart.

We are also grateful for the support of the many individuals through our Century Circle, which includes gifts of $100 or more, and express thanks for those who have made a Century Circle gift since our last published recognition in September eNewsletter.

Thanks to:

Ana de Bettencourt-Dias

Michael & Mary Kay Blakely

Brian Block

Bill Bowers

Jennifer Clements

Randy & Amy Collins

Harold Depoali

Bonnie Eschenbauch

Ken Todd & Candace Evart

Dennis Ghiglieri & Rose Strickland

Warren Heinrich

Gerald Heston

Randi Knight

Stanley & Susan McPartland

Carolyn Magin & Tom Kulczycki

Mark Luke

Jeff Miner

Marie Norell & Bob Harvey

Helen O’Brien

Laurie Reich

Satre Family Fund

Dick Seher & Laura Pinto

Steve Shane

Maddy Shipman

Cheryl Surface

John & Jill Svahn

Diana Thrall

John & Cynthia Vanbiber

Bill & Diane Zuendt

Volunteer

Donate

Explore

~ Photo by Addy Garibay

Report Trail Conditions

While all newsletter content is Copyright Protected, we encourage readers to share our newsletter with friends and family and on social media channels. If you wish to repurpose any content, or use in any print or online article, please include links and attributions to the author(s) and the Tahoe-Pyramid Trail organization.