I feel compelled to make an 'all is not yet lost' post to revive my spirits after continuing to read this thread.
I account myself fortunate to live in New York, where with an hour-and-a-half drive I can reach trailheads in either the Adirondack or Catskill Parks. New York's State Parks have come and, alas, occasionally gone. The Adirondack and Catskill Parks are different in that they're enshrined in the state constitution. They're the only parks anywhere, as far as I know, to enjoy that level of protection. In New York, the easiest way to pass a constitutional amendment is by approval of the attorney general, majority vote of both houses of the state legislature in two consecutive sessions, and then approval of the electorate in a general referendum. (I do fear what might happen if voters call a constitutional convention in the 2017 election. A convention can be called by the legislature putting the convention call on a general election ballot, which they can do at any time up to a constitutional limit of 20 years. Voters in 1957, 1977 and 1997 rejected a convention call.)
The constitutional article begins:The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.
While the Forest Preserve has had a long and sordid history, the amendment protecting it has stood for over a century - long enough that 'old second growth' is beginning to emerge in places. It has been amended twenty times, but all have been comparatively minor land deals. The most significant were the damming of New York City's great reservoirs, construction of the Olympic complex at Lake Placid, the Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre ski areas, and Interstate 87.
Even the couple of amendments that were commercial in nature were net wins. National Lead has been allowed to resume limited operations at the Tahawus mines near Newcomb, and the Saratoga and North Creek Railroad to reopen its line to the mines. The company gets some titanium ore, discarded because the mines were extracting iron, and sitting in tailings on the site. The state gets a major cleanup of a dump site, since the tailings will be removed, the structures demolished or stabilized, and the site remediated. And at the end of the process, title to the mines reverts to the state. Similarly, the NYCO Minerals holding lets the company mine 200 acres of forest preserve, in return for more than ten times that acreage in outstanding recreational land added to the forest preserve, and title reverting to the state at the end of the mining operation.
The two parks are vast: the Adirondack Park would fit Yellowstone, Everglades, Cascade, and Glacier within its borders, with room to spare. In other words, it's larger than Massachusetts or Slovenia, just short of the size of Vermont or Belgium. The Catskill Park is 'only' a tenth that size, which is still a holding comparable, say, to the Great Smoky Mountains. Roughly 120 miles of the New York Long Path are in the Catskill Park, and that is an astonishing section of trail. The Adirondacks are home to some challenging alpine hiking rivalling New Hampshire and Maine. The Adirondack Great Range Traverse is of difficulty comparable to the Presidentials, and has additional features such as a long cable route over slick gneiss.
New York has not found it necessary to resort to a permit system like most Federal lands: the Forest Preserve is still 'come and go as you will.' The day is not far off when they'll have to enact some sort of capacity management in High Peaks, but the rest of the areas are still able to absorb the impact that they see.
With any luck at all, there won't be a constitutional convention to wreck the place. 'Forever Wild' is a popular phrase in New York. It would take a really skilled demagogue preaching the gospel of austerity to convince the electorate to sell it off. A lesser politician proposing such a stupid idea would be ridden out of town on a rail.
So, all is not yet lost.