January has been off to a great start and we've got a lot more goodies coming up!
It's a relief to have the holidays over with, and we had a crazy December. Now it's time to take a step back, put things in perspective, and look at our goals for 2016.
We already had a great First Day Hike between Spruce Run Recreation Area and High Bridge, with over thirty in attendance!
We followed up with an equally awesome Raritan River confluences hike. There is a lot of good attention coming our way for more in these types of series, and I'm looking very forward to following the popularity of the NJ Perimeter series with more fun.
The big one is the National September 11th Memorial Trail.
The focus of this trail is not actually on the three sites, but the themes of heroes, of resilience, of pride in what we have.
There are a lot of conspiracy theorists, naysayers of all kinds, and everyone can believe what they want to believe....the point we should not lose in all of this is that there were heroes, first respondents, police who died on 9-11-1, and regardless of any how or why, they deserve to be honored, and I hope many of them will join in this first hike of this series. I hope to meet many more people who might not have considered themselves "hikers" at any given point, but have found this as their inspiration to come out.
The route the hikes in this series will take are not all about September 11th. They are full of wonderful sites of national historic significance and natural beauty. These hikes will not be different than anything else we've been doing apart from the fact that we are utilizing a conceptual route for this future trail, and we'll have the opportunity to share these places with a greater audience.
I plan to run these hikes also as good media PR for full trail connectivity, the "You Can Get There From Here" idea.
The third and fourth hikes, in March and April, will be loops with both the 911 Memorial Trail and the historic Morris Canal route, seen above. After that, I plan to split the hikes, and monthly there will be two themed hikes, 911 Trail and Morris Canal, until we finish both again completely (so long as their is good interest from Canal enthusiasts in NJ).
As of now, only the first two hikes for the 911 Trail are posted, for January and February pending work schedule changes. More to come on that later.
We also have a lot more great stuff to announce/coming up:
This Saturday, we will complete the Appalachian Trail in New York, and add our SIXTH STATE to the inventory of connected hikes we've done! We will reach CONNECTICUT!
Over the past 19 years, the theme of these hikes is that each one of them is somehow connected with a previous one, and in that time I have covered 15,000 miles within five different states. It's been long overdue connecting into Connecticut, and we will finally do this.
The hike Saturday 1/9 will be between Pawling and the Connecticut line. Future hikes will lead us farther into the state, with several plans coming together.
Then, on Sunday 1/17, we will cover the next bit of the former New York, Ontario, and Western Railroad's Scranton Division, now the O&W Rail Trail, between Starlight and Union Dale PA. We've been tracing much of this rail line periodically over the years, as well as the great Lackawanna Heritage Trail, which this fits into. It will be a lovely hike, mostly flat on the old rail bed, with both mixed hardwood forests and pastoral settings, as well as a few historic villages.
The following week, 1/24, is the first 911 Memorial Trail, noted above.
I am still working on details for the final weekend in January, but stay tuned, it's coming up!
Other stuff to get worked up over: twentieth annual Warren Railroad hike, or 19 Year Anniversary Hike on March 27th, then a Ricketts Glen weekend group camping trip in April with food by Scott Trinkle!
Hope to see you all soon!
M'ke
