History, Natural History & the Arts
The 
NYS Depart of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is releasing five recreation themed trail support patch designs throughout 2022, each available for a limited time only, or you can purchase the full set of all five designs at any time, while supplies last.
Just released, the third design features a rider on horseback with a green background. [Read more…] about New Equestrian Trails Supporter Patch
The Student Conservation Association (SCA) Adirondack Corps is currently hiring trail crew members to work in the Adirondacks this May through October. [Read more…] about SCA Adirondack Corps Seeks Trail Crew Members
The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has organized a working group to assist the department in revising and amending a series of policies for New York State Forest Preserve trails stewardship. The DEC organized this working group through the membership of the longstanding Forest Preserve Advisory Committee (FPAC). The working group includes members from trails building organizations, local government, and the environmental community.
The Department stressed that this is a unified management effort for the entire Forest Preserve, and the working group includes members from the Adirondack and Catskill Parks. [Read more…] about Peter Bauer: DEC’s Revised Approach to Forest Preserve Long Overdue
A very strange thing happened this fall in the High Peaks Wilderness Area in the Adirondack Park.
The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) worked for weeks in 2021 with heavy machinery to rebuild an old logging road in the Dudley Brook area of the MacIntyre East section of the High Peaks Wilderness. This is the same area where the DEC had worked for months in 2019 and 2020 to tear apart old logging roads.
DEC says they’re not rebuilding the road however, they’re correcting a massive mistake that somehow its leaders in Albany had failed to notice for the last two years.
It’s one of the strangest things I’ve seen in Forest Preserve management at the DEC in the last two decades. [Read more…] about DEC’s Management Fiasco in the High Peaks Wilderness
Recently, volunteers from the bike group CNY D.I.R.T. worked together at Morgan Hill State Forest in southern Onondaga and northern Cortland counties to build an additional 1.3 miles of single-track multiple-use trail. The forest now hosts 10.8 miles of designated multiple-use trail, with another 4+ miles planned in the next few years. [Read more…] about Volunteers Improve Trails at Morgan Hill State Forest
The Western New York Land Conservancy and its design partners W Architecture, Hood Design Studio, and Green Shield Ecology presented their final concept designs for The Riverline at a press conference at the Tewksbury Lodge Pavilion in Buffalo last week.
The Riverline is the Conservancy’s proposed urban nature trail and greenway that stretches along an unused railroad corridor from Canalside at the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Terminal Terminal in downtown Buffalo to the Buffalo River across from Riverbend and Tesla. [Read more…] about Buffalo Riverline: A Unique Urban Nature Trail Design Unveiled
The May 4th, 2021, decision by the New York Court of Appeals ruled that Class II Community Connector Snowmobile Trails violated Article 14, Section 1, of the New York Constitution.
This ruling capped an eight-year legal challenge by Protect the Adirondacks against the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Adirondack Park Agency (APA). In the end, eight of the twelve judges who looked at the evidence found that Class II trails were unconstitutional. [Read more…] about Suggestions In Wake of Historic Adirondack Legal Decision
State Parks recently acquired the 12.1-mile, multi-use Pat McGee Trail in Cattaraugus County, which supports links to Allegany State Park in New York State and Allegany National Forest in Pennsylvania. [Read more…] about State Protects Rail Trail in Western New York
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) Division of Environmental Stewardship and Planning have announced the release of the Draft Scoping Document for the Draft Statewide Greenways Plan and Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS) for public comment. [Read more…] about Comments Sought On Statewide Greenway Trails Plan