TAKE FIVE!

June 01, 2021

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Hello, I’m Meaghan Mullally-Gorr. Welcome to Sullivan 180 Presents, Take Five!. Our guest today is Lisa Lyons from Morgan Outdoors, located on Main Street in Livingston Manor. Good morning, Lisa, how are you today?

Lisa Lyons:
Meaghan, it’s nice to see you.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Good to see you too. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, about Morgan Outdoors and about your involvement throughout Sullivan County?

Lisa Lyons:
I started Morgan Outdoors 16 years ago in 2005. It celebrates all the wonders of being outdoors, focusing on hiking and in the winter, snowshoeing, nature study, and enjoyment of the natural world all year round. And I really enjoy being involved in things like the O&W Trail Alliance, having things like senior strolls, making events smartly done, of course. And,I think being involved in those things brings you into contact with many other people and their perspective. So it helps me a great deal to be more well-rounded in my understanding of the value of outdoor time to people and how to bring that back to a small business.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Tell us a little bit more about, you had mentioned that O&W Rail Trails and what’s happening on June 5th.

Lisa Lyons:
Yeah, so June 5th has been deemed a National Trails Day for many years. I didn’t look up when it started, but the American Hiking Society started it as a day of the year to talk about trails and make a point of either taking care of one, or many, or doing something meaningful on a trail. And so we in the county of Sullivan decided to have this National Trails Day be the day that we bring people together around the fact that the O & W Rail Trail in the county has general sections that are now open for public use and enjoyment, and to celebrate that, and that we’ve also had a feasibility study done for additional sections to open and that in the doing of that formed a O & W Rail Trail Alliance and the purpose there, wrll it has multiple, but one of them is to bring people together around the recognition of all these different segments that are slowly but surely creating more places for people to enjoy walking, cycling, being outside. And so those two things are happening, coming together, National Trails Day and the O&W Rail Trail with a variety of small events happening at specific rail sections on that morning, but started with a kickoff at nine o’clock in the town of Hurleyville at their Trailhead there. And that will be exciting because I think it’s bringing together a lot of different people to all say, yay, hooray, we’re getting together around the importance of this corridor. And we’re very happy to have the public come, enjoy it, help take care of it, acknowledge what it even is. Clearly it’s where the choo-choo train came to the Catskills. So it’s hugely important in our local and regional history and transforming those corridors into, we’ll call it a linear park is a really, really great thing because that snakes through a lot of the hamlets and towns in Sullivan County.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
What can people expect on June 5th? Where should they go? What should they bring?

Lisa Lyons:
So the easiest way to get together, looking at the agenda, is on a really nice website that is very easy to find, it’s sullivanoandw.com. And on that website, the very far right tab is the events tab, click on it, and it brings you right to the agenda for the day. So at nine o’clock gathering in Hurleyville is all the public officials, special guests, people that want to say this is really wonderful. It’s a great resource for our residnts and visitors alike. The second part is starting at 10, there is a walk in the town of Mamakating and Wurtsboro and then at 10:30 some of the other trailheads are gathering people to do more of a service project. So I really enjoy that personally. And, it’s amazing how many hands make light work. So I hope people will get up out of their usual routine on a Saturday morning and consider going to one of those. And on the website, it links you directly to a map showing you how to get to that spot. So it’s super useful and makes it really easy to successfully arrive at one of the trailheads and meet new people and lend a helping hand for as long as you feel like it. Bringing your own work gloves is really the main bring. I always bring my own water bottle, maybe a little bug spray, that sort of thing, simple things that you’d use for clearing things in the yard or outdoor work. So that’s all that’s needed for that. But I do want to say that after this part, the best thing that could happen from this event is that people not only love the resource, but that they utilize it as more of a regular place to go. And I could talk about that at length, because I get a lot out of walking, walking along a pathway that others share with me in this case, it has a real connection to local history. There’s some beautiful natural features along it too, from wetlands and beautiful trees arching right over it. So it’s super, super shady in the summer, rivers running along in certain areas. So a lot of beautiful natural features also.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Well, sounds like there’s a lot to look forward to on the fifth, and it is a family friendly event, right.

Lisa Lyons:
Very much so.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Okay, perfect. It’s a great way to teach your kids how to take care of their local trails. Lisa, thank you so much for everything you’re doing for the county, you are a wonderful asset. I love seeing you and talking to you and I can’t thank you enough.

Lisa Lyons:
You’re very welcome, Meaghan. It’s fun to work with you.