New York–New Jersey Trail Conference

[1] On October 19, 1920 local hiking clubs gathered in the Log Cabin atop the Abercrombie & Fitch sporting goods store in New York City.

The meeting was proposed by Meade C. Dobson of the Boy Scouts of America and organized by Major William A. Welch, general manager of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission to plan a system of hiking trails to make Harriman-Bear Mountain State Park more accessible to the public.

The project generated great enthusiasm, and on October 7, 1923, the first section of the trail, from Bear Mountain west through Harriman State Park to Arden, New York, was opened by groups of enthusiastic volunteers.

The Trail Conference also led the effort to preserve Sterling Forest in New York and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area on the border of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The Trail Conference participates in, or attends in an advisory or information gathering capacity, a number of governmental, quasi-governmental, or not-for-profit agencies, including:

Darlington Schoolhouse , Mahwah, New Jersey
Seven Hills Trail, Harriman State Park , New York
Storm King Mountain from the Breakneck Ridge Metro-North Train Station across the Hudson River
Shawangunk Ridge from Skytop Cliff, New York
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area