Chris Davis Board Chair Knick For centuries, the brooding river, powerful mountains and quiet forests of the Hudson Highlands have played a starring role in our nation’s history. They have served as the home- land for the Lenape and Mohicans, the strategic fulcrum of our War for Independence, the well- spring of our first national movement of writers, artists and poets, and the locus of the long battle that sparked the modern environmental movement. For those of us lucky enough to live here, the Hudson Highlands also plays a more local role. This landscape, with its parks and open spaces, serves as our families’ backyard, the setting for our picnics, bike rides, walks, and hikes. In recent years, these different roles have come into conflict, as waves of visitors, attracted by our region’s national prominence and beauty, have burdened our local communities and degraded this precious landscape. By creating a park worthy of this magnificent setting, while at the same time addressing the overcrowding and traffic that have encroached on our community’s enjoyment of our local backyard, the Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail reconciles this tension, embracing and enhanc- ing both the national and local significance of this landscape. To honor the iconic nature of this place, we are engaging some of the greatest designers, architects, engineers, and landscape architects practicing today. The resulting design is meticu- lously thoughtful, gracefully poetic, and heart-stoppingly beautiful. To protect our community, we are engaging our neighbors and local civic groups. We are listening to concerns about parking, sanitation, traffic, and safety. We are thoughtfully taking that feedback into account as we set about solving these issues through careful routing, off-road parking, public restrooms, and safe pedestrian access to public transportation. Thanks to the vision of our design council, the guidance of our board, the collaboration with our elected officials, the valuable input of com- munity members, the thoughtfulness of our regulators, the generosity of our funders, the talent of our designers, the partnership we enjoy with the incomparable Scenic Hudson and, above all, the talent, integrity, and dedication of our staff, we are at long last nearly ready to break ground. We cherish our opportunity to create a park of enduring beauty in the heart of one of our nation’s most iconic landscapes, while helping solve the pressing local problems that have frustrated our friends and neighbors. We hope you will join us in this wonderful venture. With thanks and gratitude, Message from Our Board Chair 12 H U DS ON H I G H L AND S FJ O R D T R AI L ANNUAL R E P ORT 202 2