New Year's Day hikes to take on Long Island 

Whether you’re launching dry January or making up for last night’s revels, First Day hikes offer a refreshing reset for Long Islanders who prefer to begin the year binging on nature instead of Netflix.

“What better way to spend the first day of the new year than by reconnecting with your surroundings?” says Jeanne Haffner, director and chief curator of the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center, one of eight state parks locations hosting hikes this Jan. 1.

Here are guided First Day hikes at parks and preserves from Nassau County to the East End, on terrain ranging from flat to hilly and at meetup hours for both early and late risers.

If you want to see the vanishing Fire Island breach

Now that Superstorm Sandy’s Fire Island breach has narrowed from an inlet to “a trickle,” this traditional New Year’s Day beach hike has become a trip down memory lane. “Interestingly, the breach closed on Oct. 29, 10 years to the day it opened,” says FINS park guide Patricia Ryley, who will provide historic notes about the disappearing breach’s location at Fire Island’s Old Inlet.

Stop along the way to collect seashells and look for American bald eagles, snow buntings, seals and humpback whales swimming offshore.   

INFO: New Year’s Day Hike to Old Inlet, 9 a.m. to noon. Park at the west end of Smith Point County Park, 1 William Floyd Parkway, Shirley, and walk across the road to the Otis Pike Dune Wilderness Visitor Center; four-mile round-trip; 631-281-3010, nps.gov/fiis, free

If you want to see seals, sea turtles and more

Long Island’s state parks offer an islandwide buffet of New Year’s Day hikes whether you want to experience breathtaking scenery, encounters with seals, sea turtles or other wildlife.

First Day hikes are “a way for people to start off the year right, to experience the outdoors and get moving,” says Mia Ramirez, environmental educator at the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center.

Ramirez and fellow educators will be sharing seal facts and providing spotting scopes for those taking the one-mile hike from Field 10 to a beach where seals swim offshore from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The nearby Energy and Nature Center, which is equipped with water and comfort stations, will be open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. 

INFO: Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center, West End 2, 150 Bay Parkway, Jones Beach State Park, Wantagh; jonesbeachenc.org, 516-809-8222.

With more than 30,000 sightings logged over the past 18 years, “99 percent of the time we see seals,” says CRESLI president Arthur H. Kopelman, a population ecologist leading the New Year’s Day hike. 

“We expect seal sightings to pick up by Jan. 1.” Either way, Kopelman says, “You are getting a great walk to a beautiful Hamptons beach.” 

The Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island seal walk is from 8 to 9:30 a.m., at Cupsogue Beach County Park in Westhampton Beach (Registration required). Meet up at 7:45 a.m. at the western end of the parking lot.

INFO: 975 Dune Rd., Westhampton Beach; cresli.org/seals, 631-319-6003.

If you want to meander a beautiful Hamptons wilderness

Take a New Year’s Day morning hike sponsored by Southampton Trails Preservation Society and Southampton History Museum from 9:30 a.m. to noon at Anna and Daniel Mulvihill and William Mulvihill preserves. Meet at the parking area at the end of the driveway of 820 Brick Kiln Rd., Sag Harbor; the entrance is opposite Highview Drive. Four miles over moderately hilly terrain. 

See the Hamptons’ wilder side on a forest trek through “one of the prettiest preserves out here,” said leader Tim Corwin of Southampton. Trailside delights include idyllic ponds and streams, glacially deposited rocks, one of the oldest American Beech Trees on Long Island, and, Corwin says — if previous hikes are any indication — such wildlife as deer, wild turkey and American bald eagles.

INFO: 631-204-7821, southamptontrails.org

If you want to begin the year at The End

Join the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference Hither Woods New Year’s Day hike at 10 a.m. Meet at Hither Hills (West), Montauk, overlook parking area, north side of Route 27 and bring lunch. The hike consists of eighth to nine miles over moderately hilly terrain.

Want more exercise and less civilization? Join hike leader Richard Whalen, 65, of Amagansett, on a trek through what he calls the “remote for Long Island” 3,000-acre preserve located a few miles west of Montauk Point. “This area is wild. You can hike all day, and you won’t see a house,” said Whalen, an attorney who has been leading such hikes for decades. On a clear day, catch glimpses of Block Island Sound, Plum Island, Gardiners Island and the Connecticut shore, Whalen says. 

INFO: 631-267-6608, 631-275-8539, ligreenbelt.org