On National Trails Day, June 2, the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference will join with Minnewaska State Park Preserve and the Mid-Hudson Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club to hike and celebrate the opening of the new Mine Hole Trail in the northernmost part of the park in the town of Wawarsing. This 3.5-mile trail links the Berrypicker Trail to Berme Road and provides most of the long-sought green link to connect the Shawangunks to the Catskills.

The event will begin at 10 a.m. at Soyuzivka, the Ukranian Heritage Foundation Center at 216 Foordmore Road in Kerhonkson. Park officials and Trail Conference volunteers who have planned and built the trail connection will be introduced. Maps of the new trail links will be available. The opening remarks will be followed by several guided hikes — short and easy to long and strenuous (a 7 mile round-trip led by a Mid-Hudson ADK hike leader) on the newly opened Mine Hole Trail and Long Path.

The public is welcome to join the event and explore this little-visited section of Minnewaska State Park Preserve. Bring water and lunch/snacks if you plan to hike.

The 370-mile Long Path — a decades-long Trail Conference project to create a trail from the George Washington Bridge to the Adirondacks — will follow its current course through Sam's Point Preserve to, heading northbound, the Verkeerder Kill Falls area (private land). From there, the Long Path will follow a new route, turning north to co-align with the High Point Trail, continuing on the Berrypicker Trail in Minnewaska, following Smiley Carriage Road for a short distance, then turning onto the new Mine Hole Trail to Berme Road in Wawarsing. From Berme Road, it is a 2-mile road walk as the route follows Port Ben Road, crosses Rt. 209 and continues on Lundy Road to Vernooy State Forest. One last regulatory hurdle remains to be crossed in order to blaze a route for the path through that forest and the adjacent Sundown Wild Forest. Once the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) completes the Unit Management Plans for the these two state forests, the trail will follow the west bank of the Vernooy Kill to Vernooy Falls, to rejoin the current route. Until that time, the trail will follow Rogue Harbor Road to Upper Cherrytown Road, part of the current route from the Shawangunks to the Catskills.

This is considered very big news for trail advocates throughout the U.S.