Above: Andes trail-lovers -- Bob Moses and Nick Verni of the Catskill Mountain Club and Bill Feldman of Andes Works! -- get muddy on Saturday while building a section of the Andes Rail Trail. Photo contributed by Ann Roberti.
Last Saturday, June 2, was National Trails Day, and hikers and walkers around the Catskills celebrated it by getting outside.
In Andes, a group of hardy volunteers got muddy while building a puncheon, or “bog boardwalk,” over a wet area on the soon-to-be completed Andes Rail Trail. (See photo above.)
In Kingston, a group of dignitaries celebrated the expansion of the Hudson River School Art Trail, a series of sites commemorating the paintings of Thomas Cole and his contemporaries.
The trail, which hits bucolic viewscapes across the Hudson Valley, added a bunch of new sites to its route, which you can trace on its iPhone-friendly website, according to the Times Herald-Record:
The trail exists primarily in cyberspace at hudsonriverschool.org. The smartphone-friendly website will provide the original paintings, contemporary photographs and descriptions for each site, which technologically savvy visitors can view while on location.
"It's like having an expert in your pocket," said Betsy Jacks, director of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site.
