RAY BROOK – The state Adirondack Park Agency has approved a plan to officially designate a hiking trail up a Tupper Lake mountain named for a slain civil rights worker.

Agency commissioners voted Friday to approve an amendment to the Bog River Complex Unit Management Plan that formally adopts and reroutes a trail up Goodman Mountain in the Horseshoe Lake Wild Forest.

Formerly Litchfield Mountain, the 2,176-foot peak was renamed in 2002 for Andrew Goodman, who was murdered in Mississippi almost exactly 50 years ago, on June 21, 1964, while working to register African-Americans to vote. The Goodmans have been seasonal residents of Tupper Lake since the mid 1930s.

The trail up Goodman Mountain starts at a dirt parking area on state Route 30, about 7 miles south of Tupper Lake village, just north of the Coney Mountain trailhead.

“The start of the trail is the old Route 3 to Tupper Lake, so there’s still pavement on part of it,” said APA planner Kathy Regan. “Then when you get into some topography, we’ve gone out and marked a trail, and (the state Department of Environmental Conservation) has gone back and modified it. We have a trail that’s been defined. It’s a really wonderful family trail.”

The trail winds up the mountain at a gradual grade, intended as an easy hike.

In addition to the trail, the amendment will allow for construction of a footbridge at a stream crossing on the trail, development of a six-car parking area at Lumberjack Springs and installation of a kiosk and trail register at the parking area.

Regan said a ceremony will be held this summer to formally dedicate the Goodman Mountain trail.

“The date has yet to be set – sometime in July,” she said. “As soon as the (DEC) commissioner signs off on this UMP amendment, the trail work will begin.”

The Bog River Complex amendment also formally adopts and reroutes another series of trails called the Otter Point Trail System. The plan calls for creating two new trails and parking areas along state Route 421 that, when linked to several existing trails and old logging roads, will create a system of loop trails ranging from 5 to 8 miles long.