Why Hopewell Park's New Pump Track Is Smaller Than the 2020 Drawing

"The challenge is we are five years into our project, taking much longer than people had anticipated," Montour Area Recreation Commission Director Bob Stoudt told The Daily Item earlier this year, counting from the state grant MARC received in 2021. "What we can build in 2026 is going to be significantly smaller than we had proposed to build in 2021."

That smaller version is now open. MARC says the Hopewell Park Pump Track, the jumps line and the skills features at the park are complete, and all park usage restrictions have been lifted. The park is on US-11 in Mahoning Township. If you remember the fundraising drive from a few years back, the track you'll ride this fall is not the one in that pitch. A shortage of funds isn't what shrank it. In the same interview, Stoudt said MARC had raised more than enough to finish the job. The limits were the ground the track had to sit on and the years of delay, which cut into what the money could buy.

The track Danville was asked to fund

Hopewell Park already had a pump track before any of this started. MARC built a small beginner dirt track and jumps area there in 2017. MARC's trail brochure puts the pump track and jumps beside the parking lot that also serves the mountain bike trails. A pump track is a loop of rolling mounds that riders get through by pumping their bodies rather than pedaling. Stoudt described the planned upgrade to The Daily Item as "a series of rolling asphalt mounds that you can ride a bike on."

In January 2020, MARC hired DirtSculpt to draw something much bigger: a paved pump track measuring 150 by 300 feet, plus a renovation of the existing dirt track and jumps. Support came in quickly. The Daily Item reported $139,020 in pledges and contributions at that stage, including a $50,000 commitment from the Columbia-Montour Visitors Bureau. MARC also applied for a $125,000 matching grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. MARC's own 2023 records show a $25,000 contribution from Geisinger.

The DCNR grant was approved in 2021, and the money arrived at the beginning of 2022. With the grant and the donations in hand, the project looked ready to start.

A solar project used the same strip of land

What held it up was a land deal. Montour County sold part of the parcel the park sits on, and that piece became a solar development. Stoudt told The Daily Item that the access route to the solar project ran right through the spot where the pump track was planned. MARC had to wait for the subdivision process and then for the solar construction to finish.

The solar work finished in November 2025. By then, the cost assumptions from 2021 were about four years old.

Why the money was enough but the plan still shrank

Stoudt gave The Daily Item two reasons for the downsizing. "The buying power of our money doesn't go as far," he said, "and we ran into wetland and FEMA floodplain issues that limit where we can build." The money was there. Inflation reduced how much track it could buy, and the wetland and floodplain lines cut down the usable ground.

The budget numbers back this up. In the same report, Stoudt put the total cost at $250,000, with $272,000 already in MARC's account and as much as $307,000 if the remaining pledges came in. He named the Columbia-Montour Visitors Bureau, Geisinger and Mahoning Township among the larger organizations behind most of the donations.

The MARC board then offered refunds to anyone unhappy with the new plan. "We will fully refund any donations to people who are disappointed by our project plan as it is now proposed," Stoudt said. "If a donor is disappointed that we took too long, we get it." Because the account was already above the $250,000 cost, MARC could afford that offer. Supporters who still wanted to give were asked to send their pledges in by May 30.

The last $75,000 came by way of Montour Preserve

The final funding move involved MARC's other big property. MARC also runs Montour Preserve, and according to a later Daily Item report, Talen Energy paid its pledged $180,000 contribution, which covered all of MARC's Preserve costs for the calendar year. The board voted to take $75,000 out of its Community Giving Foundation Montour Preserve Fund to reimburse those Preserve expenses. That turned $75,000 into unrestricted money that could go to the Hopewell track.

That report described the project as being in the final stages of permitting. Stoudt said the crew was booked, construction was set to start Sept. 14, and the work should take "about three to four weeks max," with a hoped-for mid-October opening. After nine years of planning, the build itself stayed on that schedule. American Ramp Company was the contractor, and The Daily Item reported the reconstruction finished and open to the public. The Columbia-Montour Chamber's October 15 member news carried MARC's announcement that all the new features were complete, with staff finishing small details the following week.

If you've been to Montour Preserve's fall races, the same organization's budget helped pay for this track.

Finding it and riding it before the light runs out

Hopewell Park is on US-11, also called Montour Boulevard, in Mahoning Township across from Woodbine Lane. MARC's trail brochure says the entrance is just past Sheetz and Woodbine Lane, across from Danville, and the pump track and jumps sit beside the parking lot.

• Hours: Dawn until dark, every day, according to Stoudt. As the days get shorter into November, there's less riding time after school or work on weekdays.
• Trails next door: The Hopewell Park and Danville Borough Farm trail network has more than eleven miles of mountain bike trail, rated from beginner to very difficult.
• Hunting season: The Trailforks listing for the system says hunting is allowed on parts of the property, seasonal closures may apply, and blaze orange is strongly recommended during hunting season. That listing was last updated in July, so check current conditions before heading out on the trails.
• Before you go: The 150-by-300-foot paved design is the 2020 proposal, and MARC has said the finished track is smaller. For surface details, allowed equipment and rules, go to MARC directly.

On a Saturday afternoon, the track fits easily with the rest of Danville's late-fall calendar. Healthy Halloween runs Saturday, October 31, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Ferry Street Growers Market, with costumes, pumpkin painting and live music. Pink Friday and the Annual Cookie Crawl are on November 20, with participating shops open until 8 p.m. and $5 advance cookie-crawl tickets. The Welcome Santa Parade starts at the river end of Mill Street at 6 p.m. on December 4 and ends with the tree lighting in Canal Park. The next day, the Hometown Holiday Market fills Mill Street and Canal Park from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mill Street will be closed from Route 11 to Mahoning Street for a couple of hours before, during and after the market, so the US-11 approach to Hopewell Park is the simpler drive that day.

For more on the borough and the county around it, see our Danville and Montour County pages.

The Hopewell track is a good example of how land limits shape what gets built here, from wetland lines to floodplain maps to a county parcel sale. Those same limits affect homes along the US-11 corridor, and they're part of what an appraiser looks at. If you own near Hopewell Park or anywhere in Mahoning Township and want a value based on comparable local sales, CENTURY 21 Mertz & Associates can help. Get a Free Home Valuation from a team that has been appraising Susquehanna Valley property since 1994.