MVHC President's Column

By Bill Simmons

Mohawk Valley Hiking Club members have played decisive roles in support of the Long Path project, since it’s inception, which was the vision of Vince Schaefer. He proposed that New York establish its own “Long Path” similar to the Long Trail in Vermont creating it as an unmarked route meandering from the George Washington Bridge to Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks, the name of the path coming from Walt Whitman’s poem Song of the Open Road: “There lies before me a long brown path, leading wherever I choose”.

In the 1960’s the New York - New Jersey Trail Conference expanded that vision by creating a blazed hiking trail along Schaefer’s route. Currently the Long Path is a 358 mile hiking trail extending from the 175th Street Subway Station in NYC, north to John Boyd Thatcher Park in Albany County. Future plans are to extend the trail to the Mohawk River and eventually into the Adirondacks.

As a long time member and trail maintainer of Long Path North I would like to extend an invitation to join in the following scheduled hikes:

July 13 LP in Cole Hill State Forest, about 3 miles on LP Section 34

August 3 Bald Mountain, near Stamford, 4-5 miles

August 24 New LP re-route in Partridge Run 3.5 miles

Contact me at: simmons872@aol.com for further hike details.