Ask three people on Staten Island where they hike and you get one answer: the Greenbelt. Ask which trail and the conversation usually stalls. That gap is built into the way the place gets talked about. What most people call "the Greenbelt trail," as if it were a single loop, is actually 2,800 acres of forest, wetland, and rolling hills spread across Willowbrook Park, LaTourette Park, High Rock Park, and Clove Lakes Park, making it New York City's largest remaining forest preserve.
Inside that footprint sit six marked trails. Four are woodland routes identified by blaze color. One is a flat multipurpose path. One is a short connector out of the Nature Center. They differ in length by a factor of four, they differ in terrain, and only one of them will let you bring a bike. Picking the wrong one doesn't ruin a Saturday, but it does mean showing up expecting a 45-minute walk and getting an 11-mile commitment instead, or hauling a bike to a trailhead where it isn't allowed at all.
Four Trails, One Habit Worth Breaking
The Blue, Yellow, Red, and White trails are the Greenbelt's woodland core. All four are closed to bikes and motorized vehicles, reserved for hikers and runners moving through mature oak and beech forest, tidal wetlands, and open meadow. Beyond that, they have almost nothing in common.
| Trail | Length | What it's actually like | The reason to pick it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue | About 11.1 miles, with a connector for a shorter loop | A long u-shape crossing a mix of surfaces, including several stretches on roadway | Real mileage, not a stroll. Trailheads sit at Forest Avenue near Clove Lakes Park and at Brielle Avenue near Sea View Hospital, per a Tripadvisor overview of the trail system |
| Yellow | 8 miles | Crosses Bloodroot Valley, High Rock Park, and LaTourette Park | A quarter-mile detour to Paulo's Peak, described below |
| Red | 3.2-mile loop | Fully forested, entirely inside LaTourette Park | A short commitment with a genuine payoff at the end, also described below |
| White | 7.6 miles | Runs from Willowbrook Park south through Egbertville Ravine and Buck's Hollow to Great Kills Park | The Greenbelt Nature Center sits at the halfway point, a built-in reason to break the hike into two shorter ones |
None of this is posted at a single trailhead sign in a way that makes the choice obvious. The blaze colors tell you which trail you're on once you're already on it. The decision about which one to start on has to happen before you park the car.
The One Trail Built for a Bike
If cycling is part of the plan, the woodland trails are off the table entirely. The Greenbelt sets aside exactly one route for bikes: the multipurpose trail, a flat 2.6-mile stretch with a crushed gravel surface and six-foot-wide walkways that runs westward from Rockland Avenue along Forest Hill Road, tracing the edge of the LaTourette golf course toward Richmond Avenue, according to the Greenbelt Conservancy's own trail descriptions.
That same flat path does double duty. A branch off it leads toward Historic Richmond Town and St. Andrew's Church at Old Mill Road, and the route hosts the Greenbelt's annual Cold Feat 10K race each February. It's the only trail in the system engineered for speed and wheels rather than roots and grade, which makes it the right answer for a family bike ride or a stroller, and the wrong answer if what you actually wanted was forest cover and quiet.
Where the Short Trail Beats the Long One
Mileage isn't the only variable worth weighing. Two of the shorter routes carry payoffs that the longer ones don't.
The 0.25-mile detour off the Yellow Trail leads to Paulo's Peak, an artificial hilltop that started as a pile of rubble from an abandoned 1960s highway project defeated by community and environmental activists. It was known locally as Moses Mountain for decades before being renamed in 2022 in honor of a former Staten Island Parks Commissioner, and it now offers close to panoramic views for a fraction of the effort a full Yellow Trail hike requires, per NYC Parks.
The Red Trail's 3.2-mile loop through LaTourette Park does something similar. A brief detour, marked with newer Peach Trail signage, leads to the Heyerdahl Hill Ruins, the stone foundation of a house built in the 1860s by the Heyerdahl family, who tried and failed to grow a grape orchard on the surrounding hillside because of the serpentine rock underneath the soil. At 241 feet, the site is one of the higher points on the eastern seaboard, and ghost stories about the family still circulate locally. The loop also passes Buttonbush Swamp near Lighthouse Hill before ending back at the LaTourette Golf House, where parking is available.
Both routes make the case that a shorter trail with a destination beats a longer one without.
What's Different on the Ground This Fall
The trails themselves are getting more attention than usual this season. Con Edison recently awarded the Greenbelt Conservancy a $70,000 Community Resilience Grant to fund the Greenbelt Conservation Corps, the volunteer program responsible for trail restoration and park cleanups. The grant is paying for monthly volunteer engagements through the fall, which means stretches of trail that have been rough for a while are more likely to get cleared and maintained in the coming weeks.
Timing also matters for what you'll see. Fall is the Conservancy's own pick for peak foliage and for birding, particularly for spotting birds of prey moving through the forest canopy as temperatures drop. Free color trail maps are available at the Greenbelt Nature Center at 700 Rockland Avenue, which is worth a stop before a first attempt at any of the longer routes.
Two Dates Worth Putting in the Notes App
The Conservancy runs a handful of events tied directly to the trail system, and two land in the next two months.
- Thursday, September 17, 2026, from 7 to 10 p.m., the Conservancy holds its annual Blue Jean Ball at the Carousel for All Children in Willowbrook Park, an evening of food, drinks, and live music that funds the trail work and education programs described above.
- Saturday, October 6, 2026, from noon to 4 p.m., the Annual Pumpkin Festival takes over Willowbrook Park, with pumpkins sold first come, first served from the patch and family activities that include I FISH NY fishing lessons.
Both sit close enough to the woodland trails that a hike and an event can share the same afternoon, particularly for anyone starting from the White Trail's northern end or the multipurpose trail, both of which touch Willowbrook Park directly.
The Point
Calling it all "the Greenbelt" isn't wrong, it's just imprecise in a way that costs people time. Six trails, four parks, one bike-legal path, and a couple of detours worth the extra quarter mile add up to a system where the right choice depends entirely on what you're solving for that day. Bring the map from the Nature Center, decide on mileage and terrain before you park, and the 2,800 acres in the middle of the borough stop being background scenery and start being useful.
Staten Island's neighborhoods change in small, specific ways like this all the time, from what's funded on a trail to what's opening on a commercial strip nearby. Keeping track of those details is part of how Maria Nica works with buyers and sellers across the borough. If you're thinking about what life actually looks like in a specific pocket of Staten Island, Let's Connect.
