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Credit: David Tulloch
Charles Gandy, left, and Zainab Miller,
landscape architecture at Cook College,
are helping to redesign an eroded
portion of the Appalachian Train in Bear
Mountain State Park.
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Landscape architecture students at Cook College are providing their expertise for a project to redesign an eroded portion of the Appalachian Trail that runs through Bear Mountain State Park in New York.
The project is part of a course, “Intermediate Landscape Architecture I.” The students, working in partnership with the New York/New Jersey Trail Conference, gather data and use geographic information systems technology to design a sustainable trail route.
“The project offers our students an opportunity to demonstrate how to use the land wisely as we accommodate continued public access,” said David Tulloch, co-instructor of the course. “In addition to the science and planning as a basis for their design recommendations, we require our students to display a sense of stewardship in the landscape.”
The students have access to the Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis at Cook College and to data from the USDA Forest Service’s New York-New Jersey Highlands Regional Study, of which Tulloch was a co-investigator. All of the data has been captured to present an accurate picture of physical and cultural aspects of the site.
The Bear Mountain portion of the Appalachian Trail is the most heavily used section of the entire 2,170-mile National Scenic Trail. This popularity has resulted in overuse and degradation, despite previous relocations and continual refurbishing of eroded stretches. In response to this damage, the New York/New Jersey Trail Conference and its partners are prepared to design and implement a permanent trail route. They have asked Rutgers students to help organize the design process and present their recommendations to the community at two public sessions.
The students will present their final recommendations at a meeting, referred to as a charette, at Bear Mountain this month. All landscape architecture students take this class as part of a program that qualifies them to pursue a license in professional landscape architecture. Cook College has the only landscape architecture program in New Jersey.
“We stress the importance of accommodating human activity while minimizing the negative impact on natural and cultural systems,” says Jean Marie Hartman, a co-instructor of the class. “We are very proud of our students and are happy that they are able to participate in this project, which is enabling them to make a significant contribution to the people in the region.”
Work on the trail is expected to start in 2005. The project will last for approximately five years.
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