The Bear Mountain Trails Project

About the Bear Mountain Trails ProjectDay Hike Map

The Bear Mountain Trails Project (BMTP) is a major trail building and rehabilitation effort managed by the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference in cooperation with its partners: The Appalachian Trail Conservancy, National Park Service Appalachian Trail Park Office, NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. The project is designed to rehabilitate and rebuild the trails on Bear Mountain as well as educate the public. 

A "Masterpiece Trail" 

- Backpacker Magazine on our work in progress.

The project includes a major relocation of the Appalachian Trail, the restoration of the Major Welch Trail, the restoration of the Suffern Bear Mountain Trail, the construction of a link trail from the Suffern Bear Mountain Trail to the pine flats area on the Lower East Face section of the Appalachian Trail, and the construction of the Trails for People Exhibit and accessible trail. 

The most significant of these construction efforts is on the Appalachian Trail, which has been re-routed numerous times on Bear Mountain since its founding in 1923 due to erosion caused from the trails 100,000+ hikers a year. This erosion on the A.T. was the catalyst for the conception of the Bear Mountain Trails Project.

Trails for People Project at Bear Mountain


Get Involved

Work trips led by Trail Conference field managers and AmeriCorps members involve a variety of tasks, such as: prepping work sites, quarrying and/or splitting stone, using an overhead highline to transport stone, creating crushed stone (with mash and sledge hammers), building crib walls, setting rock steps, and revegetation. 


  ​​​​Bear Mountain Trails Project in the Press