www.nynjtc.org Connecting People with Nature since 1920 May/June 2008 New York-New Jersey Trail Conference — Maintaining 1,683 Miles of Foot Trails In this issue: National Trails Day...pg 3 • Building for the Ages...pg 6 • Hiking with Kids...pg 7 • About Trekking Poles...pg 11 Trail Conference Fights Parks Closure Plan in NJ s this issue was going to press, Trail Conference volunteers and staff were mobilizing to prevent closure of parks in New Jersey. On March 31, the state’s C ADivision of Parks and Forestry released recommendations for extensive park L closures in order to comply with Governor Corzine’s fiscal year 2009 budget. O DEP recommended full elimination of services and closure at the following areas: High S Point State Park; Jenny Jump State Forest; Worthington State Forest; Monmouth Battlefield ED State Park; Stephens State Park (administered under Hopatcong State Park, which will ! remain open); Brendan T. Byrne State Forest (including Indian King Tavern); Round Valley Recreation Area; Parvin State Park; and Fort Mott (including Hancock House). Partial elimination of services and/or closures would occur at Ringwood State Park (including reduced hours at Ringwood Manor, closure of swimming at Shepherd Lake Welcome to Recreation Area), D&R Canal State Park (including reduced interpretive services and clo - Hig sure of Bulls Island Recreation Area) and Washington Crossing State Park (40 percent h Point State reduction in interpretive staff – resulting in reduced hours of operation at Clark House, Park Johnson Ferry House and the museum). For the latest news and action alerts, stay tuned at www.nynjtc.org. Volunteers Open ing woods roads, but these are unblazed. Call for Trail GPSers!! You can even walk into Port Jervis by fol - New Trails (and lowing the LRT out of the woods to a If you hike with a GPS connection with the city’s History Trail near unit, or are willing to Other Trail News) the Neversink River. (See Favorite Hike, learn how to use one, Two New Trails in the Shawangunks page 12, May/June 2007 Trail Walker. ) you can help us contin - The Shawangunk Ridge Trail and Long ue to create great trail Path South crews recently finished two South Gully Trail Opens maps! Dedicated volun - new trails. Many thanks to Eric and Sue The other new trail in the Shawangunks is teers have collected the Meyer, Andy Garrison, Malcolm Spector, the South Gully Trail, which runs from majority of the GPS Gely Franke, Ryo Kiyan, John Moran, Sam’s Point Preserve in Cragsmoor down data used to create the Mike Knutson, Linda and John Siwarski, 1,400 feet to Route 52. It is blazed with trails on our current Paul Labounty, and the participants in the aqua blazes that signify the Long Path, since maps. The Publications Fall 2007 Trail Maintenance 101 workshop it will be part of a future reroute of the LP. Committee is working at Sam’s Point, who helped to make these The elevation at the Sam’s Point trailhead is on a number of major trails a reality. 2,000 feet; at Route 52, it is 600 feet. mapping projects, including The trail follows a mostly linear course The new South Gully Trail connects brand new digitally produced editions of Minisink Trail Extended through South Gully, a beautiful ravine on to Sam’s Point our popular Kittatinny Trails and Catskill One of the new trails is a nearly 2-mile the west flank of the Shawangunk Moun - embankment, with the stream and several Trails map sets, as well as a new addition to extension of the Minisink Trail (MT) that tains. The trail starts at the loop road in pretty falls and pools visible below. After a our North Jersey Trails map set covering opened in the spring of 2007 in the town of Sam’s Point Preserve, and is 2.7 miles long. final stream crossing, the trail follows a northern Morris County parks. We need Deerpark, on the outskirts of Port Jervis. woods road down to Route 52. A few cars your help collecting GPS tracks of the trails The MT (red blazes) now runs nearly four can be parked there just south of the bridge and woods roads in the following areas: miles from an intersection with the Lenape over the gully to provide a shuttle. Catskill Forest Preserve Ridge Trail (white blazes) in Deerpark, —Jakob Franke, Chair, northeast to a new trailhead on Route 6 at Long Path South Committee Delaware Water Gap the Deerpark / Greenville town line, where National Recreation Area there is parking for several cars. The MT Windham Long Path Section High Point State Park Temporarily Closed can also be accessed via a trailhead for the Stokes State Forest Lenape Ridge Trail near the junction of Old Recently, a timber harvest was begun in Greenville Turnpike and Limekiln Road. the Ashland-Pinnacle State Forest near Worthington State Forest Starting from the new MT trailhead on County Route 32C in the Town of Farny State Park and Route 6, follow the red blazes up to a woods Windham. This harvest will require the surrounding areas road, which the trail follows for almost a temporary closure of a short section of the Pyramid Mountain mile. It goes under a power line, then short - Long Path and a nearby parking area. The Mahlon Dickerson WMA ly after turns onto a footpath that extends section of the LP that is closed will be tem - through a wooded valley. The trail follows a porarily relocated a short distance to the Wildcat Ridge WMA stone wall and crosses several streams and north. The relocated trail is marked with Other parks in northern other woods roads. The path then turns orange flagging. An alternate parking area Morris County and southern sharply northeast (right), and arrives on a is available a short distance down a truck Sussex County narrow ridge, where there is a great viewpoint trail from the closed parking area. A writ - at a spot where the railroad passes through a South Gully in the Gunks features several ten notice and map showing the locations If you hike in any of these parks and cut in the ridge. The new trail goes under a pretty falls and pools. of the relocated trail and alternate parking would like to help with our GPS efforts, power line before it links with the junction of are posted on site. contact [email protected]. If you the pre-existing MT and LRT. It passes an old berrypicker shed, crosses would like to help support our region’s You can make this a 6-7 mile lollipop through a nice patch of laurel, and reaches A Re-route on the Hewitt-Butler Trail superb network of hiking trails in some hike by continuing on the MT and return - a pretty stream before crossing Gully Road. The North Jersey Weekday Trail Crew, other way, check out the opportunities on ing via the Lenape Ridge Trail, or vice Next it crosses several small streams and after several previous work trips, got out on page 6 (Volunteer Classifieds) or online versa. Other routes are possible by follow - then follows South Gully on a high continued on page 4 (www.nynjtc.org, click on Volunteer). Climate Change VOLUME XXXV, N UMBER 3 ISSN 0749-1352 Non-Profit Is on the Way: US Postage Paid Permit No. 1239 How Will the Bellmawr, N.J. Woods Respond? Learn why our forests are changing before our eyes. Turn to page 7. Page 2 May/June 2008 From the Chair VOLUME XXXV, NO.3 MAY /J UNE 2008 Wanted: More ‘Noise’ about the Trail Conference GEORGETTE WEIR EDITOR LOUIS LEONARDIS GRAPHIC DESIGNER Most of us seem to lot of stuff. And we don’t tell other people So what is to be done? We need to strike The TRAIL WALKER (USPS Permit #1239) agree that the Trail how to behave (other than “please don’t a new balance between charm and nobility (ISSN 0749-1352) is published bi-monthly by the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference as a Conference (TC) destroy our trails with your ATV”), we just on the one hand and enhancement of benefit of membership. Subscriptions are does a poor job in provide them with great opportunities to organization effectiveness on the other. available to libraries only at $15.00 a year. advertising itself. I enjoy nature. There is a certain nobility in First, we need a volunteer who can act as Periodical postage paid at Mahwah, N.J., and certainly do. When I a volunteer organization that provides sig - an excellent “communications guru,” to additional offices. Postmaster: Send address tell an acquaintance nificant service to the public without a manage/coordinate all of our external com - changes to the address below. Opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily represent the policy that I spend much of great deal of focus on self promotion. munications. Career experience in or position of the Conference. Contributions of my time in retirement with the NY-NJ The conundrum is that, nevertheless, we marketing and management would be an typed manuscripts, photos, and drawings are Trail Conference, the response is usually a could do an even bigger and better job if excellent plus. If you are interested, or welcome. Manuscripts may be edited for style blank stare. Before I joined the TC about our external communications/organization know of someone who might be, let a and length. Send SASE for writers’ guidelines. 10 years ago, I had no idea who maintained marketing were enhanced. We could get board member or committee chair know.