Gene Giordano and John DeSanto will present photographs, give personal reports as well as hiking tips and outline how easy it is to get out and enjoy the great outdoors.
Giordano is Appalachian Trail Community Lead and DeSanto the AT Community Ambassador for the Town of Warwick.
"It's amazing how scenic and wild the Warwick section of the Appalachian Trail is," says Giordano. "There are relatively flat sections that families can enjoy and rough-and-tumble sections that will satisfy the more serious hiker." The A.T., which winds its way more than 2,180 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia all the way to Mount Katahdin, Maine, first enters New York at the Warwick border with New Jersey and exits into Monroe near Fitzgerald Falls.
“Warwick has incredible diversity along our 10-mile section of the famous footpath,” DeSanto says. “From pristine waterfalls, to challenging rock roller-coasters to easy footpaths to incredible views, it’s rare to find this kind of beauty this close to a major metropolitan area.”
Giordano, a member of the New York / New Jersey Trail Conference, has been leading groups and singing the praises of the Appalachian Trail since 1991. He was the chair of the NJAT Management Committee from 2004-2016, overseeing the management and maintenance of the A.T. and all its structures in NJ, and continues to serve on the committee. He has personally hiked 1300 miles in 9 states along the A.T. in the past 30 years. He is currently working with the Town of Warwick in developing an accessible nature trail at the Wickham Woodlands Town Park.
DeSanto has completed several multi-day hikes in the Blue Ridge Mountains of central Virginia, the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York and along the Appalachian Trail here in southern New York and northern New Jersey. Giordano, is a professional guitarist and teacher and DeSanto is a professional photographer and the recently retired Director of Photography at the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y. The pair have created a new mobile-friendly website – www.hikewarwick.com - which will help hikers sort trails by difficulty, find parking, offers safety tips and directs visitors to amenities located in the villages of Greenwood Lake and Warwick.