While not yet a continuous trail, relying on road walks in some areas, it nevertheless takes in many of the popular hiking attractions west of the Hudson River, such as the New Jersey Palisades, Harriman State Park, the Shawangunk Ridge and the Catskill Mountains.

It offers hikers a diversity of environments to pass through, from suburbia and sea-level salt marshes along the Hudson to wilderness and boreal forest on Catskill summits 4,000 feet (1,220 m) in elevation.

Vincent Joseph Schaefer, a scientist who worked in Schenectady for General Electric, began to imagine a "hiker's route" from New York City to the Adirondacks shortly after helping to found the Mohawk Valley Hiking Club in 1929.

He wrote to an official at Harriman that: There would be no cutting or blazing, for this trail would be a truly wild walk that wouldn't erode the land or scar the solitude ... and each found site would be an adventure in orienteering.

Torrey, who had done much to get the Appalachian Trail built, both physically and in print, in the New York metropolitan area the previous decade, announced the idea in a column in 1933.

The column further discusses possible extensions: a route over Wallface Mountain to join the Northville-Placid Trail by way of Henderson Lake and the Preston Ponds; a climb over Mount Van Hoevenberg and traverse of the Sentinel Range Wilderness Area to emerge at Jay, New York; and possible routes to the Canadian border, either to the Thousand Islands to the west or along the Chateaugay River to the north.

Schaefer and hiking club pal Al Getz followed the Long Path from Schenectady to Edward's Hill in the southern Adirondacks, near Bakers Mills, New York, in the late 1930s, but as Schaefer and Cady became involved in the war effort and drifted away from the hiking community, the idea of the Long Path as originally conceived quickly became part of history.

With members of the club, a route was set, landmarks were located by Global Positioning System, and digital photos were established for 80-plus places that Schaefer reckoned to be worthy of attention.

On the ground, a low-volume road walk was located through Albany, Schenectady and Saratoga counties, crossing the Helderbergs and the Rotterdam Hills to the Mohawk River.

As it reached the (southern) Adirondack Blue Line, just north of Lake Desolation, the Long Path took on a "Forever-Wild" character, becoming a bushwhack, a landmark-to-landmark trek through the southern and central park into the High Peaks, following log roads, existing trails, and low volume roads to eventually reach the top of Whiteface Mountain, with its climate observation tower — SUNY's "Schaefer Observatory" of 1980 Olympic fame — as the last cached location of the Long Path.

And for the woods savvy hiker, the bushwhacks through the last 150 miles (240 km) of the Long Path capture Vince Schaefer's original vision — a tramp across short distances using 'dead-reckoning, modern point-to-point "geocaching" and sheer map reading, orienteering skills'.

By the middle of the decade, it would extend 75 miles (121 km) north of its former terminus, to the Indian Ladder in John Boyd Thacher State Park.

However, this added Plateau Mountain to the trail route, and pending future approval from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and an amendment to the Unit Management Plan for the Indian Head Wilderness Area, a new section will be built to follow a ridge from Silver Hollow Notch to the Devil's Path on Plateau and eliminate that road walk.

The relocation would rejoin the present Long Path route at Vernooy Falls west of Riggsville in the Ulster County township of Rochester.

Lastly, in 2015 the southern end of the trail was moved to New York City, to the 175th Street subway station in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.

One way of solving the Orange County problem, avoiding it entirely, came out the joint efforts of the New York - New Jersey Trail Conference and the National Park Service.

The low-lying route in Sullivan County actually is something of a blessing, as it allows hikers to take in the magnificent Basha Kill Wildlife Management Area.

The AT-SRT detour is the route currently recommended by the Trail Conference for anyone considering a thru-hike of the LP, due to its better capacity for camping and fewer road walks, despite the additional 22 miles (35 km) it adds to the trip.

Using a combination of road walks and the Northville-Placid Trail, he made his way from Altamont to Lake Placid, where he climbed nearby Whiteface Mountain on July 25, 46 days after he began hiking.

His run was mostly self-supported (for the first 300 miles (480 km)); he put food/supply caches at six points along the route, and slept on the ground (on a sleep mat) at places along the trailside.

Once past the stone monument at the state line, it briefly dips back into New Jersey, then moves closer to U.S. Route 9W near Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, then heading for Tallman Mountain State Park, where it climbs the eponymous feature, then descends to the trail's lowest elevation, a mere 5 feet (1.5 m) above sea level as it crosses Sparkill Creek on a wooden bridge.

After High Tor, it stays on the ridge of South Mountain County Park as it curves away from the river, toward a crossing of the Palisades Parkway, US 202 and NY 45 in Mount Ivy.

Leaving it to run alongside Dismal Swamp, it crosses the Appalachian Trail not long afterwards, then continues north towards the Lake Cohasset Shelter where camping is permitted.

It follows an access road into a parking area, then climbs up Long Mountain to a memorial in honor of and at a favorite view of Raymond H. Torrey, who did much to make the trail possible.

Then it heads westward, skirting at times the boundary of the United States Military Academy (West Point) property, crossing NY 293 and following it and later Route 6 closely in neighboring woods until it can finally leave Harriman Park behind and drop down to local roads in the Central Valley area, cross the Thruway again, then along Woodbury Creek on a dirt road to NY 32 and Schunemunk Mountain.

Continuing on down to Warners Creek and then up Edgewood Mountain, where views north have been cut, it drops down again via Silver Hollow Notch to ascend Daley Ridge, joining the Devil's Path, perhaps the most challenging and rewarding trail in the Catskills, west of the summit of Plateau.

It follows the Devil's Path across Plateau, Sugarloaf, Twin and Indian Head mountains down to the Platte Clove Preserve, then makes a brief road walk to the Kaaterskill High Peak snowmobile trail.

On the north side of that peak, the Long Path descends more than 2,000 feet (610 m) via a zigzag route past several waterfalls to Palenville, crosses NY 23A, then goes back up the other side of Kaaterskill Clove via the Old Overlook Road to the Escarpment Trail, the site of the legendary Catskill Mountain House, North–South Lake State Campground, and finally up to North Mountain with its inspiring views back over the Escarpment and the lakes.

First stop is Mine Kill State Park and its waterfall, then the trail crosses through the woods to Lansing Manor at the Blenheim-Gilboa Power Project.

continues via Burnt-Rossman Hills, Mallet Pond and Patria state forests on the other side, then up NY 30 to Vroman's Nose, a popular local hike.