Habitat Vail Valley VP Finds Community on Pitkin Lake Trail

Elyse Howard didn’t just cut branches on the Pitkin Lake Trail this past May. She found a reason to stay in Vail.

The vice president of community affairs and philanthropy at Habitat Vail Valley worked alongside the Vail Valley Mountain Trails Alliance. They adopted the path for the season. It sounds like a standard volunteer day. It wasn’t.

Howard says the work got her thinking about the bigger picture. The views of the Gore Range helped. But the real draw was the connection. Her husband and kids already volunteer with the trail alliance. Her oldest son interned there. That internship led him to a job with the USFS. He found his passion on the trail. Maybe even his future.

Howard sees that same trajectory in her own life. She found her voice on housing in her 20s. Everyone in her house hears her talk about it. She advocates for it. But housing alone doesn’t make a livable community. You need more than walls and roofs. You need the spaces between them.

Maintaining a trail is community building. It’s that simple. And it’s essential to living here.

So many of us moved to the valley to be outside. To explore. To adventure. Habitat Vail Valley builds homes. But it also helps maintain the essence of what makes this place special. The route sits close to Timber Ridge. That’s where Howard’s worlds collide. Family. Work. Volunteering.

It used to be simpler. When Howard first moved here, she joined a new-hire class at ski school. They traveled in a pack. They held multiple jobs. They went to every free concert at the amphitheater. They had a robust barter system. You could trade ski tunes for pizza. Bike tunes for a meal. It was an insta-community. We all needed each other. We helped each other.

Now, the scale is different. The nonprofits are interconnected. They need to work together to thrive. That’s what partnership means. We use the word a lot. But Howard dug deep into the thought while she was working the loppers. Clearing the brush. She wondered where we find community. Why we care so much.

She hopes you find it. In your neighborhood. At your book club. In music. On the trail. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Reach out. There’s a strong community of volunteers here. Waiting.

This isn’t just about trail maintenance. It’s about the social fabric that holds the Western Slope together. It’s about realizing that the people building your house are the same people clearing the path to your backyard. It’s about recognizing that isolation is the enemy of a thriving town.

Howard notes that Habitat Vail Valley is intent on helping build and retain community throughout Eagle County. That’s a broad mandate. It requires more than just pouring concrete. It requires showing up. It requires cutting branches. It requires trusting your neighbors to hold the other end of the rope.

The corridor is just one piece of the puzzle. But it’s a visible one. It’s accessible. It’s close to home. It’s where the rubber meets the road, or rather, where the loppers meet the trail.

Howard says it’s almost too simple. Maintaining a trail is community building. But simple things are often the hardest to do consistently. They require time. They require effort. They require showing up when you’d rather be sitting on your couch.

The short version? We need each other. To be our best. To do our best. To survive the winter. To thrive in the summer.

The trail is open. The volunteers are there. The question is whether you’ll join them. Or keep waiting for someone else to do the work.