COLD SPRING – Rain threatened the ribbon-cutting a new quarter-mile trail that connects the Breakneck Pass and Wilkinson trails, so it was conducted Thursday in Cold Spring, a few miles south when entering the village.
“It provides people a place, when they get to the flagpole. The flagpole is the first place when you get up the mountain. You have climbed up this scramble, you get the flagpole, and you have this incredible view, and you look up and you’re intimidated by the rest of the mountain you have to climb because you are not at the top, you have a long way to go,” said Erik Kulleseid, New York State’s commissioner of Parks, Recreation and Historical Preservation, who cut the ribbon. “And you look down and you say, I don’t want to do down that steep scramble. This trail (will take you) back the parking lot. It’s very easy to navigate. It gets people back where they started from.”
The trail will help hikers down the mountain with stone steps, making it safer, with still abundant views of the Mid-Hudson Valley and Hudson Highlands region.
“It’s a beautiful trail,” said Kulleseid. “It has viewpoints of its own.”
