Youth Conservation/Service Corps and Community Outreach

Hyde Park Heritage Greenway - New York

Park managers with young trail workers

The RTP grant was instrumental in helping to make the Hyde Park Trail System “ready for prime time.”

In 2003, the Town of Hyde Park received a Recreational Trails Program grant for improvements to the Hyde Park Heritage Greenway Trail System. The Hyde Park Trail System includes 14 miles of trails within units of the National Park System, a State Park, several Town parks, a nonprofit nature preserve, and private lands, as well as trails that link between them.

Physical improvements and new parking for key trails made them accessible and appealing to the public. Trailhead kiosks help build a strong identity for the trails and cultivate public awareness of the storied landscapes that weave throughout the entire town, including National Park sites outside the boundaries of the town.

A new trail map/brochure, combined with a consistent system of trail directional signs and color-coded trail markers, provided high-quality visitor orientation and wayfinding regardless of land ownership.

On the Hyde Park Heritage Greenway

Youth Conservation/Service Corps involvement made project completion possible:

A Student Conservation Association (SCA) intern during 2008 focused entirely on Hyde Park Trails. She helped enhance community engagement by enlisting and training volunteer trail maintainers, running trail maintenance days, creating the first trails newsletter, and working with the National Park Service Park Educator to create “Spring Break” trail activities for local school children and their families.

Additional SCA interns have helped with trail marking, GPS mapping, and invasive species removal.

Vocational students with the Dutchess County Board of Cooperative Educational Services built the five trailhead kiosks, and continue to make the majority of the routed trail directional signs.

Fourteen Eagle Scout candidates have completed trail projects, restored trail segments, and built boardwalks, bridges, benches, switchbacks, and stairs that all enhance the trails.

The trails have steadily grown in popularity and are used by increasing numbers of groups and individuals. Trail counts by the National Park Service recorded over 44,000 trail visits during 2009.