Warm winter keeps Long Islanders outdoors

At Jones Beach last week, the Fitzpatrick sisters, Brittany and Kiera, dipped their toes in the surf. At Islandia's Lakeland County Park, Tom and Sherri Casey led 21 hikers on a 6-mile jaunt. An army of golfers played through at Sunken Meadow State Park, where park director Jeffrey Mason has not quite grown accustomed to this winter's busy playgrounds and boardwalks.

"In December, I'd notice patrons out here barbecuing," he said.

Use of Long Island's trails, beaches and parks is spiking, with temperatures from the last three months hovering well above historical averages and with 25 days since December that reached 50 degrees or warmer, according to accuweather.com. The weather service said temperatures will be more seasonal this week except for Wednesday, when the high is expected to hit 50 degrees. Officials who manage Long Island's state-run parks estimate they had more than 675,000 visitors in January, 112,000 more than in the same month last year.

"In recent years, this is absolutely the busiest January we've seen," said George Gorman Jr., deputy regional director for New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. "We're seeing people coming onto the beaches, little kids playing in the sand."

David Reisfield, president of the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference, whose volunteers lead more than 200 hikes a year, said that attendance was greater than normal. "Also, the people who would normally be on our hikes during winter tend to be more hardy souls," he said; this year, people who normally stay away until spring have been coming out in droves.

Mark Moradoff of Bellmore, jogging on the boardwalk at Jones Beach recently, was grateful to be spared the indignities of Roosevelt Field mall, his default jogging spot during colder winters. Shoppers there "look at me and they say, 'What's with this guy?' "

Joe and Barbara Smalley were out too, he rehabbing from a fall and she accompanying. "This beach is part of us," she said. "I've been to Waikiki Beach, to Florida," he said. "There's no sand like this sand."

Marek and Aldona Jagielo were off work early, strolling with 2-year-old Olivia and 2-month-old Daniel. "We've never had weather like this," Marek Jagielo said. "I enjoy it, but is it really winter?"

The weather has not pleased everyone. "The people into sledding, particularly on the golf courses, the cross-country skiers, snowshoers -- those enthusiasts we haven't seen this year," Gorman said.

Absence of snow has forced the outdoors retailer REI to cancel snowshoe classes planned for Long Island parks or hold them at its Carle Place store, a move that presents problems of its own.

"We can't really have people up and walking in snowshoes in the store," said Noelle Thurlow, outdoor programs and outreach manager for the tri-state market. Teachers instead employ PowerPoint presentations and discussions of destinations that actually have snow. Perhaps not surprisingly, a consensus seems to be emerging among customers and teachers: "OK, we'll just move on to spring," Thurlow said.