National Trails Day, celebrated annually since 1993, will be held this year on June 7. Events in the Catskill Mountain and Hudson Valley Region have been coordinated this year in cooperation with the Hudson River School Art Trail, so breathtaking scenic spots on both sides of the river will be mark the way.

Promoted by the American Hiking Society, National Trails Day is aimed at inspiring the public and trail enthusiasts nationwide “to seek out their favorite trails to discover, learn about, and celebrate trails while participating in educational exhibits, trail dedications, gear demonstrations, instructional workshops and trail work projects,” according to the society’s Web site.

The American Hiking Society attributes the origins of this national celebration of the hiking trails to a 1987 report from President Ronald Reagan’s President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors. The report recommended that all Americans “be able to go out their front doors and within 15 minutes be on trails that wind through their cities or towns and bring them back without retracing steps,” according to the society. Dubbed “Trails for All Americans,” the recommendation motivated several private and public parties to join with American Hiking Society to promote the annual event.

Locally, the Hudson River School Art Trail carries you to the sites that inspired America’s first great landscape painters: Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Cropsey, Sanford Gifford and others, to view the landscapes that helped launch the Hudson River School of Art. It is a project of Cedar Grove, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, in Catskill, NY.

At the Olana State Historic Site, Carri Manchester, the Director of Education, will be leading a hike along about five mails of trails that weave their way through the 250-acre estate, including North Road, Farm Road, Lake Road and Ridge Road. The free hike begins at 9 am, and will form in front of the Visitor Center at Olana, Hudson River School Art Trail Site 2. Participants are encouraged to bring water and snacks. Call 518 828 0135 for more information. A fee to access the grounds may apply during peak hours.

“He was creating approach roads to the original house,” says Manchester, of the ground she and the group will cover on June 7. “Others are just pleasure routes that don’t really have a destination.” She says a steep hill is part of the hike, though “it’s certainly not mountain climbing.”

“We’ve been doing Trails Day for years,” she says. “I think there are a lot of people who come to Olana and go in the house and go on the tour and never see the rest of the grounds. This is a chance to get out there and see that there is a lot more to this site than just the house.” As Manchester points out, there aren’t “a ton of parks” in the immediate vicinity, so for the people of Hudson, “this is a beautiful place they can get to very quickly,” she says.

This year the Hudson River School Art Trail will be partnered on June 7 with the Haines Falls-based Mountain Top Historical Society, which is sponsoring a hike to Sunset Rock in the North-South Lake Campground. The walk will be led by geologist Robert Titus and Mountain Top Historical Society trail guides Larry Tompkins and Bob Gildersleeve.

Sunset Rock is Site 7 on the Hudson River School Art Trail, and known for its views of the Hudson River Valley and the North and South Lakes. The group will meet at the society’s visitor’s center, on state Rout 23A, and carpool to North-South Lake, where an auto usage fee applies. The hike should conclude by 3 pm. For more information, call the Mountain Top Historical Society at 518 589 6657.

Following the hike, the Mountain Top Historical Society will host a talk by Titus at 4 pm, with a book signing for Titus’ latest book, The Other Side of Time. A professor of geology at Hartwick College in Oneonta, Titus has authored several books on the geology of the Catskill. The Other Side of Time is a collection of his writings published in Kaatskill Life magazine.

There will also be a wine and cheese reception. There is a $5 charge to attend the talk and party, where local food products will also be featured.

The Society’s fully restored Ulster and Delaware Train Depot will be open to visitors from 1 to 4 pm. Barbara Mattson, vice president of the Society, says that a new sign denoting the Hudson River School Art Trail sites on the shore of North Lake will also be unveiled on June 7.

The permanent outdoor educational exhibit and full color panel includes accurate reproductions of Thomas Cole’s painting from that exact spot, as well as the pencil sketch he used to record the view in 1825, says Page Stapleton of Cedar Grove.

The view from the Thomas Cole National Historic Site is Hudson River School Art Trail Site 1.

Further west, you can join the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development for a 15-mile hike of Dry Brook Ridge. The ridge runs from Margaretville and the east branch of the Delaware River south over Balsam Lake Mountain to the Beaver Kill.

The Center’s Ben Murdock says the hike will be split into two sections, allowing participants to join the group for one or both legs of the journey. Beginning at 9 am from the Margaretville trailhead, hikers will head first to the Mill Brook Road parking lot, some 9.6 miles away. At 2 pm the day will continue south on the trail to Balsam Lake Mountain Fire Tower. After a stop to enjoy the views, participants will continue down the ridge, concluding the route at the Beaver Kill Road parking lot, where a vehicle will shuttle hikers back to the starting points.

This hike will be led by staff members of the Catskill Center, all experienced hikers, trail stewards and familiar with the area. For more information and to register for the hike, call Ben Murdock or Peter Manning at 845 586 2611.

Cedar Grove continues its weekend-long celebration on June 8 with “We Are Still in Eden: Perspectives on the Healing Powers of Nature from the 19th Century to Today,” a symposium presented by John F. Sears, Ph.D., Independent Scholar, cultural historian and author of Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century. Sears will reveal the origins of the “escape to nature” movement in the early nineteenth century, and the role played by Thomas Cole and the Catskill Mountains, in particular. Harvey K. Flak, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Geography at Vassar College and 2003 Russel Wright Award winner for Environmentalism, will explore how the nineteenth century’s love of nature grew into the twentieth century’s efforts to preserve the environment. Nancy Wells, Ph.D., Environmental Psychologist at Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology, will offer insights into how scientific research in the 21st century provides evidence that documents the beneficial effects of nature on health and well-being, demonstrating the accuracy of beliefs Cole articulated back in 1836.

The symposium will begin at 1 pm, following a viewing from 12 to 1 pm of the current exhibition in the main house at Cedar Grove: Thomas Cole’s Sketch Paintings: An Exploration of the Creative Process.

Tickets are $15, or $12 for members. Symposium tickets can only be purchased on the day of the program and are available at the visitor’s center beginning at 10 am, or the symposium venue Temple Israel, next door to Cedar Grove, starting at noon. The event is supported by a grant from the New York Council on the Humanities.

The American Hiking Society’s National Trails Day Web page, www.americanhiking.org/NTD.aspx, has links to events taking place from coast to coast, as well as in Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, so you can find a way to mark the occasion where ever you find yourself this first Saturday in June.

The Hudson River School Art Trail Web page, at www.thomascole.org/trail/index.html, includes links to downloadable maps and directions, as well as images of paintings of historic and contemporary photographs of the sites you will find along the way.

More information and directions to the Olana State Historic Site can be found at www.nysparks.com, under historic sites, or at www.olana.org, a site operated by the Friends of Olana.

For more information on the Mountain Top Historical Society, visit their Web site at www.mths.org.