Published November 13, 2015 07:56PM
Appalachian Trail Gets New Section
New stretch opens in Bear Mountain State Park
'Bear Mountain State Park, where the 0.2-mile section of the AT has been relocated. (Photo by Jiashiang/Flickr)'
A new 0.2-mile section of the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail will open this weekend.
The new section, located in Bear Mountain State Park, N.Y., was relocated by volunteers from the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference’s Long Distance Trails Crew who worked for nine months and over 3,000 hours on the project.
This section of the trail was originally built in 1923 by the Trail Conference, but became “heavily used and deeply eroded,” according to the head of the Trails Crew, Chris Reyling. In response, the volunteers built the relocated route with natural stones to help eliminate this problem.
“We hope what we designed is going to last for a long time,” Reyling said.
A ribbon cutting celebrating the opening of the new section will be held Saturday at noon, followed by a half-mile guided hike by the crew to test out the new trail.