New York Long Path, New York, NY - Albany, NY

Text: Tony Pisarra

The perhaps deserved orphan of long-distance backpacking trails, the New York Long Path (LP) stretches from the palisades of the George Washington bridge across 150 varied, and occasionally suburban, miles to the capital at Albany.

Highlights include Harriman State Park, the Catskill Mountains and the southern Adirondacks. Lowlights include suburban New Jersey and New York.

Inspired by the Vermont Long Trail (1921), the Long Path was proposed by Vincent J. Schaefer of Schenectady Unlike Long Trail (and AT), the Long Path was initially conceived as including a bounded corridor but no fixed trailbed with the idea that hikers would proceed along the route by map and compass.

Although abandoning Schaeffer's greenspace vision, The New York - New Jersey Trail Conference successfully layed out a blazed trail along his proposed route in the 1960s.