New York-New Jersey Trail Conference
Palisades Interstate Park -- NY Cluster
Directions
Use "Park Description" on this stie to open a web page of the park(s) of your choice. It will include directions to specific locations
Park Overview
A cluster of state, county, and town parks are arranged like giant stepping stones along New York's section of the Palisades in Rockland County.
Trail Overview
In New York State, the Palisades cliffs comprise an almost continuous greenway that extends along the eastern edge of Rockland County, from Tallman Mountain State Park in the south to Mount Ivy in the north.
Much of the Palisades lies within several units of the Palisades Interstate Park system, and the Long Path follows the Palisades ridge. When combined with numerous intersecting or nearby trails and byways, the Long Path offers many opportunities for circular routes encompassing not only woods and meadows but also local history and interesting architecture.
Each of the parks include in the cluster provides a trails overview, directions and contact information. To find specific hikes in parks along the Palisades click here, sort on the "Regions" column and scroll down to "Rockland County" (the numerous hikes listed in the "Palisades" Region refer to the New Jersey Section).
Park Description
The Palisades cliffs is a unique geological formation that begins at the Rahway River in New Jersey, crosses the western edge of Staten Island, continues north along the Hudson River passing by the George Washington Bridge -- where the Palisades Interstate Park, NJ Section begins -- finally passing into Rockland County, New York, turning inland at Haverstraw Bay, and then ending abruptly at Mount Ivy.
The beginnings of the Palisades Interstate Park system dates from the time when the residents of New York City were slowly aroused to the devastations of the quarrymen blasting along the cliffs for traprock. The real menace to the Palisades came with the demand for more concrete to build skyscrapers and roads and quarries were opened from Weehawken to Hook Mountain. To check this activity, New York and New Jersey jointly created the Palisades Interstate Park Commission [PIPC] in 1900. Notable gifts of land have been contributed since that time and subsequently the PIPC was also charged with preserving the natural beauty of the lands lying in New York State on the west side of the Hudson, including the Ramapo Mountains as well as state park lands in Rockland and Orange counties, and those in Sullivan and Ulster counties outside the Catskill Forest Preserve. The Palisades Parks Conservancy is a non-profit organzation supporting the activities, parks and historic sites of the PIPC.
The Palisades Interstate Park - NJ Section serves the portion of the Palisades cliffs in Bergen County, New Jersey. There is no comparable Palisades Interstate Park as such for New York, rather the PIPC administers a system of separate state parks. Those along the NY Palisades are identified below. The list also includes county and town parks which, organizationally, are not part of the Palisades Interstate Park system. The parks are listed in geographic order running from south to north along the Palisades in Rockland County, NY.