Running the Long Path
In reading Running the Long Path I ran it myself in the company of a poet, a historian, a biologist, a naturalist, and a determined running partner.
The Long Path(LP), a 358 mile hiking trial, runs from the 175th Street Subway Station in New York City to John Boyd Thacher State Park near Albany in Upstate, New York.
Conceived of by Vincent Joseph Schaefer, in the 1930s.
Schaefer named the trail after this quote:
“Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.”
from the Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman. The Second World War took Schaefer’s attention and the idea died down until the sixties.
In 1960, Robert Jessen of the Ramapo Ramblers hiking club, and another city-based hiker, Michael Warren, revived the idea of a trail from NYC to the Adirondack Mountains.
The LP more or less parallels the Hudson River Valley while climbing the New Jersey Palisades, Bear Mountain in Harriman State Park, the Shawangunk Ridge, the Catskill Mountains, and the Helderberg Escarpment. A diversity of environments in a short distance give hikers to pass through, from suburbia and sea-level salt marshes along the Hudson to wilderness and boreal forest on 4,000 foot high Catskill summits.
From the early 1990’s with Albert (Cap) Field’s first completion of the path to November of 2017 154 people have hike the whole Long Path. Some in sections and some thru hiking and two, David O’Neill and Ken Posner, have run it. Well, run the runnable sections.
List of LP End-to-Enders. 154
The Long Path is under the purview of the Trail Conference, which divides it geographically into three sections:
The NY-NJ Trail Conference and the Friends of the Long Path are continually working to maintain and improve trails and reroute the trail off roadways onto newly acquired right of ways.
Two major reroutes will be open in 2018.
At the Greene / Schoharie County border a private landowner has agreed to allow the Long Path to cross his land. At some point in early 2018 the Long Path will again be routed over Huntersfield Mountain. it includes a lean-to. This will eliminate the third longest (4.5 miles) road walk on the Long Path.
The second is at the Schoharie / Albany County border where the NYNJTC & OSI preserved a 175 acres that will someday be added to the Partridge Run Wildlife Management Area. In addition to that the Long Path North Hiking Club secured trail agreements from Four private landowners. This eliminates a 2 mile roadwalk at the county line.
the Long Path Trail is a thread connecting many of New York's parks, preserves, and state forest lands.
The Long Path(LP), a 358 mile hiking trial, runs from the 175th Street Subway Station in New York City to John Boyd Thacher State Park near Albany in Upstate, New York.
Conceived of by Vincent Joseph Schaefer, in the 1930s.
Schaefer named the trail after this quote:
“Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.”
from the Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman. The Second World War took Schaefer’s attention and the idea died down until the sixties.
In 1960, Robert Jessen of the Ramapo Ramblers hiking club, and another city-based hiker, Michael Warren, revived the idea of a trail from NYC to the Adirondack Mountains.
The LP more or less parallels the Hudson River Valley while climbing the New Jersey Palisades, Bear Mountain in Harriman State Park, the Shawangunk Ridge, the Catskill Mountains, and the Helderberg Escarpment. A diversity of environments in a short distance give hikers to pass through, from suburbia and sea-level salt marshes along the Hudson to wilderness and boreal forest on 4,000 foot high Catskill summits.
From the early 1990’s with Albert (Cap) Field’s first completion of the path to November of 2017 154 people have hike the whole Long Path. Some in sections and some thru hiking and two, David O’Neill and Ken Posner, have run it. Well, run the runnable sections.
List of LP End-to-Enders. 154
The Long Path is under the purview of the Trail Conference, which divides it geographically into three sections:
- The Long Path South Committee for the areas south of the Catskills
- the existing Catskill Trails Committee for the Catskills
- and The Long Path North Committee.
The NY-NJ Trail Conference and the Friends of the Long Path are continually working to maintain and improve trails and reroute the trail off roadways onto newly acquired right of ways.
Two major reroutes will be open in 2018.
At the Greene / Schoharie County border a private landowner has agreed to allow the Long Path to cross his land. At some point in early 2018 the Long Path will again be routed over Huntersfield Mountain. it includes a lean-to. This will eliminate the third longest (4.5 miles) road walk on the Long Path.
The second is at the Schoharie / Albany County border where the NYNJTC & OSI preserved a 175 acres that will someday be added to the Partridge Run Wildlife Management Area. In addition to that the Long Path North Hiking Club secured trail agreements from Four private landowners. This eliminates a 2 mile roadwalk at the county line.
the Long Path Trail is a thread connecting many of New York's parks, preserves, and state forest lands.
