NHOC History
In the beginning:
In the Fall of 1966, then Nassau County Executive
Eugene Nickerson asked the Nassau County Recreation Department to look into
forming a hiking club on Long Island. The New York -
New Jersey Trail Conference gave them
names of hikers living in Nassau County who might be interested. It must be
remembered that at that time there were no other hiking clubs on Long Island;
NHOC is the granddaddy of them all. The Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference
had not even been conceived of. An organizational meeting was held on Dec. 6,
1966 at the 19th
Hole (the basement of the Clubhouse restaurant) at Salisbury (now
Eisenhower) Park, chaired by Dick Allen. There were
45 people in attendance. The name Nassau Hiking & Outdoor Club was chosen to
acknowledge the help given by the Nassau County government. This help was
withdrawn in 1971 when we lost our meeting place. Luckily Bernie Litman, was able to get us back our
meeting place at the l9~” Hole, although now we have to pay for it.
“Outdoor” was included in the Club title to
represent our activities other than hiking.
Our first hike was in Tackapausha Preserve on
Dec. 18, 1966 and was attended by 55 people including County
Executive Nickerson (who dropped out after one mile due to other commitments).
The resulting publicity, including an article in Newsday,
was very helpful in attracting new members; by
March 1967 we had 54 paid members, and by September 1967 we had 125
members. As of March 2005, NHOC membership has grow to 520 members.
There were two major problems during this
formative time. The first was the need for insurance. This was solved, at least
temporarily, by incorporating so as to limit liability. The second was the
resignation in December 1968 of Helen Rowan as Shorelines editor.
From January to April 1969 Shorelines was not printed; members got
only a meeting notice and a hike schedule. Luckily since May 1969, Shorelines
has been printed because of NHOC volunteers.
CLUB TRADITIONS
The 100 Mile Patch, which has been so successful in providing a goal for hikers, was
conceived in September 1970. In 1974 and 1975 backpack and weekend trips were
included in the total, which enabled Linnel Ilinchey to do 442 miles in 1974, a
record which still stands. After that the mileage tally was limited to regular
day hikes, and no one has been able to make over 400 miles. Bertha Pritchard
kept the mileage tally until 1998, a difficult job since she had to do it
without benefit of a computer.
The NHOC 1000,
an award for climbing all local peaks over
1000 ft
high, was inaugurated in May 1976. At that time there were 60 peaks involved.
This award was allowed to lapse after 1980 due to lack of interest, but was
started up again by Joan Smith in 1994 in a new form, limited to 43 peaks, all
in Harriman. The award still has limited popularity; to date only Lanny Wexler
(in 1995) and Don Hecht (in 1997) have won it.
Thanksgiving on the Trail.
The first one was Nov. 24, 1973, led by Earl
Albright. It was at Pine Meadow Lake in Harriman, which cannot be reached by car
but can be reached by a variety of hikes of all degrees of difficulty. The Club
did not lay out money for food; everyone brought food to share, which included
several different breads, turkey stuffing, cranberry relish, potato soup, and
pumpkin pies. Doug Soroka and Linnel Hinchey hauled in a 15 lb grate for the
fireplace. This became an annual tradition, but in Nov. 1983 it was moved to
Fahnstock Park to avoid the need to hike in while carrying all that food. The present form started in 1995 and
is due entirely to Florence Feuer and Ann McGowan, who deserve a great deal of
credit for all the work they put into this feast.
Weekends
have long been an NHOC tradition, but there was no official weekend committee
until 1977; Ruth Overgaard was the first weekend committee chairperson. Our
first weekend was New Year’s Day 1967, at Blue Mountain Lodge in Peekskill, NY;
this became an annual tradition which continued until 1981. Blue Mountain Lodge
is typical of the places we went on weekends in those early years
-
cheap, dormitory-style accommodations. I remember
the long dormitory as having a big hot-air heater suspended from the ceiling. At
night the room would gradually cool down until everyone was freezing; then the
heater would come on with a roar loud enough to wake everyone up, and stay on
until the room was unbearably hot; then the cycle would repeat. The most
interesting weekend was probably Washington’s Birthday weekend of 1979 at
Linwood YMCA in Branchville, NJ; we were snowbound and had to stay an extra day.
Another popular weekend was Veteran’s Day Weekend at Frost Valley
YMCA in the
Catskills, from 1978 to 1987. This was given up because the weather in the
Catskills in November is usually not very nice, because Veterans Day is not a
weekend holiday, and few people have it off anyway. Since 1987 there has never
been an official Club weekend at Frost Valley, but members continue to go up
there on their own.
It is interesting to compare this with a more
recent tradition, Columbus Day Weekend at the Granit, near Minnewaska; this
started in 1991 at Tessler’s in Kerhonkson. When a scheduling mixup by Tessler’s
prevented us from going there in 1992 we switched to the nearby Granit. The
difference from past weekends is that the Granit is a fancy resort, with
comfortable, hotel-like rooms, which most members seem to prefer to dormitory
accommodations. Columbus Day weekends at the Granit continued until it went
bankrupt in 1997, causing us to switch to the Nevele, in Ellenville.
SHORELINES
Editors: beginning to Dec
1968 Helen Rowan
May 1969 to May 1971 Ruth Overgaard and Dick
Ulrich
May 1971 to Sept 1971 Ruth Overgaard
Sept 1971 to Feb 1973 Ruth Overgaard and Winnie Steckmest
Feb 1973 to Jan 1977 Winnie Steckmest
Jan l977toDec 1983 Ken King
Dec 1983 to Jan 1985 Judy Schubert
Jan 1985 to Oct 1986 Ilsa Saphra
Oct 1986 to present Ken King
Shorelines was not published
between Dec 1968 and May 1969
Circulation:
-
beginning to summer 1973 Harry & Yetta Sokol
Dec 1973 to Dec
1976 Ruth Overgaard
Jan 1977 to Oct
1978 Ethel Bogdanovich
Nov 1978 to April
1988 Lorraine Zelner (nee Wishnak)
May 1989 to May
1996 Esther King
June 1996 to present Ann McGowan
Judy Schubert took over the editorship in Dec
1983, promising to make a more interesting and readable paper. This she did by
using columns and putting in lots of pictures, not an easy task in those ancient
times before computers, which may explain why she gave it up after only one
year. If Shorelines is more
readable now than in the past, it is no credit to the editor but to modem
computers, which made it all easy.
Masthead:
The first masthead was designed by Roger Junk in April 1968; it was a picture
showing beach grass and a shorebird. Roger was NHOC President in 1971-73. The
second masthead was designed by Ray Welch in Dec 1977; the picture showed the
sea and two snow-capped peaks. The present masthead was designed by Bob Hilbert
in May 1996; a new one was needed because the old one had degraded so badly
after being reproduced so many times, making copies of copies. The present
masthead has been scanned into computer, so the problem of degradation over time
no longer exists.
NHOC Presidents: 1967-69 Dick Allen
1969-71 Joe Lech
1971-73 Roger Junk
1973-77 Earl Albright
1977-79 Arnold Buchsbaum
1979-81 Harry Sokol
1981-85 Abe Dreksler
1985-87 Bernie Tanenbaum
1987-91 Ruth Overgaard
1991-93 Jeanne Petta
1993-94 Christine Auletta
1994-99 Dick McGowan
1999-00 Cary Blosser
2000-Present Patrick McGloin
Backpack Trips
have never been common NHOC events but seem to have more common in the early
days. Over Memorial Day 1974 Max Wiener led ten people on a successful 3-day
backpack in Harriman. In July he led 12 people on a 9-day, 72 mile backpack in
the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Max Wiener is still an NHOC member but he
has since moved to Israel; however he returns every August to the Whites. In May
1977 Larry Braun led 12 people on a 2-day backpack in the Catskills. In May 1978
Cleve Dodge led a similar backpack in the Catskills, but it was less successful
due to 3 ft of unmelted winter snow on Plateau Mt. The hike schedule lists a
backpack by Doug Rokaw in the Catskills in June 1998, but I have no hike report
for it and so have no idea how it went.
Special Events
Anniversary Dinners in 1976 and 1986 at Bear Mountain Inn
March 1984:
The current NHOC logo showing 2 golden hikers on a blue background is introduced
November 1981:
Abe Tatz breaks his ankle while on an NHOC hike in the Catskills
May 1980:
Six NHOC’ers do the entire Suffolk Greenbelt, 35 miles, in one 14 hr day.
Dec 31, 1994:
Lanny Wexler leads a Harriman hike that winds up in Times Square at noon; we
celebrate with noisemakers and party hats. This was really fun; Lanny will
repeat it Dec. 31, 1999.
July 1997:
Lanny Wexler, George Form, Pat McGloin, and Ken King climb Balsam Cap and Friday
in the Catskills on a 3-day backpack up the Neversink River Valley, enabling Ken
King to complete his Catskill 3500 after 30 yr
Unsung Heroes:
Special events and weekends are fine, but the functioning of our Club depends on
hike leaders and even more on the hike coordinators, who beg and cajole members
into leading hikes and somehow manage to keep our hiking schedule full. Eileen
Mahler has been C hike coordinators since 1987. Joan Smith has been A hike coordinator since October
1989. Liz Mansky’ has been B hike coordinator since 1995. Gregory Simone has
been Singles Coordinator since 2003.
