About the Authors

Walt & Jane

Jane and Walt Daniels are hikers, devoted to the outdoors, and committed to the protection of open space. Hiking accomplishments include climbing the 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks and section hiking the 2175-mile Appalachian Trail. They began volunteering for the New York New Jersey Trail Conference in 1979, first as a team and then with separate responsibilities. According to Walt, he moves rocks and Jane moves people.

Jane is a retired reference librarian. She served on the Trail Conference board from 1990-2011, including six years as board chair and on the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) board from 1993-1999. In 2007, she chaired a committee hosting the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's 36th Biennial Conferece, an eight day event with over 850 attendees and 376 volunteers. Having built and managed trails, she understands trail issues from the shovel to the board room. In April 2013, she was named NY Trail Worker of the Year by American Trails. Jane is the president of NY State Trails Council, on the board of the Hudson Greenway Conservancy, the president of the Friends of FDR State Park and on the board of the American Hiking Society.

Walt, a retired computer researcher from IBM, serves on the Town of Yorktown's Conservation Board and is chair of the Open Space Advisory Committee and served on ATC's Board of Mangers from 1999-2005. He has been involved with the Dutchess Putnam AT Management Committee since 1983.  He has been on the Board of the NY-NJ Trail Conference since 2011.

In 2010, Jane and Walt started a project in the Town of Yorktown to build a trail system connecting open space around the Taconic State Parkway. Parks in the system include Sylvan Glen Park Preserve, Turkey Mountain Nature Preserve, Yorktown Trailway, FDR State Park, and Granite Knolls Park. The project is joint with the Westchester Mountain Biking Association.

They have lived in Westchester County since 1968, where they raised their two daughters.