Vote for the Appalachian Trail at Bear Mountain State Park at bit.ly/tc-rei-etc15. (Photo: Jeremy Apgar)
Vote for the Appalachian Trail in REI’s Every Trail Connects campaign!
Since 1920, the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference has been connecting people with nature. REI supports our mission, and is donating up to $75,000 to our trail-building project on the Appalachian Trail in Bear Mountain State Park–but we need your help!
Vote for the Appalachian Trail at bit.ly/tc-rei-etc15. Ten trails are vying for a total of $500,000, so your early votes are important. Each device (computer, tablet, smartphone, etc.) is allowed one vote per day. Every vote gets us $5 closer to building a safer, more sustainable, and more enjoyable trail.
With just a few clicks, you can help us complete this project and preserve the Appalachian Trail. Vote now, and help spread the word!
About the Bear Mountain Trails Project
The Appalachian National Scenic Trail (A.T.) is one of the most storied and revered hiking paths in North America, if not the world. Spanning 2,189.2 miles from Georgia to Maine, the first section of this “super trail” across the Appalachian Mountains was constructed in 1923 through Bear Mountain State Park by volunteers of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference.
The trails in Bear Mountain State Park welcome an exceptionally large number of users and receive an uncommon amount of wear due to their location near New York City. In 2006, the Bear Mountain Trails Project was established to build a sustainable trail system throughout the park, focusing on the original—and still the most heavily used—portion of the Appalachian Trail. Over the past nine years, more than 1,745 Trail Conference volunteers have logged nearly 65,000 hours of service on the project, completing 65 percent of the trail restoration.
The Bear Mountain Trails Project has been made possible through the active support of the National Park Service, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, New York Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Palisades Interstate Park Commission, Palisades Parks Conservancy, and the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference.