Fahnestock Spring

Two great ladies: give them a mess of markers and a hammer, the results …

Jane the nailer:

and Liz a tacks

December 2012 on the Hudson Trail

Jane, Fred and Bob went out in the snow and ice to put up markers on the Hudson Trail in the Clarence Fahnestock Memorial State Park, near Hubbard Lodge…then repaired to a warm pub in Cold Spring.  Join us next time!

…

 

 

 

 

Fahnestock State Park signage

Sign indicating Hudson Trail overlap on trails in Fahnestock State Park

Visit to the Croton Dam

Eli hits the trail.

Hudson Trail: Working on signage for Clarence Fahnestock State Park

We are working on signage for entering and exiting the Clarence Fahnestock State Park and the Hudson Highlands State Park, where the Hudson trail overlays existing trails. We also are working on a possible new trail in and next to the Hudson Highlands State Park. Please join us for indoor (designing signs, blogging, Google Earth work) and outdoor work!
Here is a tentative draft of a sample sign. Please comment.

Hudson Trail in Clarence Fahnestock State Park

CommuniTyler Event

On December 3rd, as the NYC CommuniTyler
(
http://communityler.org/index.html
)
kickoff event, a group of 2 dozen New Yorkers, led by Kacey Ronaldson, worked with Friends of the Hudson Trail to do maintenance on a portion of the Old Croton Aqueduct used by the Hudson Trail.

CommuniTYler helping out Hudson Trail / Old Croton Aqueduct

Branches were moved and garbage was carted out and a good time was had by all.

NY NJ Trail Conference Hikes

The New York New Jersey Trail conference is having the annual meeting and pancake breakfast on October 15. Go to
http://www.nynjtc.org/content/pancakes11

to register. All proceeds to the “Good bye Irene Trail Restoration fund”. Bob Jessen will be leading a hike on the Hudson Trail at Blue Mountain.

Game Changer: The Hudson Trail is Back

As you may know, the Hudson Trail is a project to build a long hiking trail from the High Bridge in NYC to Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks. The strategy is to link together existing trails using public roads and right-of-ways. The trail is made up of 4 parts, we call treks: South Trek, Stissing Trek, the Bend Trek and North Trek (see the page About the Hudson Trail). Development was proceeding nicely. Officials, hikers and casual walkers told us that they appreciated our markers. However, something went wrong about two years ago. Our markers were torn down on and around the Old Croton Aqueduct, markers that people had told us were very helpful in making the connections on streets. NY State officials stopped communicating with us. We do not know the problem, but it may have been that we suffered from not being a formal group focused on a local project. We believed and still believe that our strategy of getting a whole trail marked and then working with local groups to improve it is a good one. We also did not want to compete for donations with existing groups, groups that we each belong to as individuals.

But something happened. Fourteen members of the New York State Assembly, led by Assemblyman Bob Castelli, 89th Assembly District, the district for Mt. Kisco where Bob Jessen resides, have written a letter to Commissioner Rose Harvey, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, requesting action to rectify the situation and allow the Friends of the Hudson Trail to proceed.

Please contact us if you want to work on this project. The weather is beautiful. Let’s to out and build a trail.

Off the roads and into the woods?!

We have had encouraging meetings with the NYC DEP concerning routing the trail off Rte. 129 into the woods just north of the New Croton Dam. This would be approximately .7 miles.  There is still work to go: a formal proposal to make, but we are encouraged.

the proposed off road adjustment

Update

Even though we toiled this unusual summer sporting umbrellas and cold weather gear, we have checked many of our original painted blazes. They are in great shape, due in no small part to the paint, disabled-parking blue.

We also did the indoor work using Google Earth to divide the trail into 36 sections, each estimated at a day’s walk, roughly 10 miles.  Please look at the updated About the Hudson Trail page at the upper right of the screen. Please comment.