Since the boys and I like to go camping where it is free and not very crowded, we spend a considerable amount of time scouting out new places.  There are a lot of resources on the Internet now for free campsites., but unfortunately it appears about 50% of them are Walmarts and similar concrete camping.  Maybe if I had a big motorhome I’d change my attitude, but right now with the Aliner and no inside bathroom, I prefer to be in the woods boondocking at a primitive campsite.

So our latest scouting trip was to the Hunts Pond campsites.  This is a fairly large pond or small lake that, it appears, used to be a state park campground.  It is currently maintained by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation with Porta-Johns, mowing, and road maintenance.  There is no Potable water in the  campground or nearby.   Acquired during the 1960’s, Hunts Pond State Forest is the most recently established State Forest in Chenango County. Its 1,397 acres traverse the valley of a feeder stream to the Unadilla River, giving way to a very diverse landscape of open fields, softwood plantations, hardwood forests and beaver meadows.  Views of the Unadilla river valley are spectacular from the large open field on the western part of the forest. For those who want to see a beaver family hard at work, be sure to visit the beaver meadow in the south central area, just off of Buttermilk Falls Road.

I don’t know if they do any stocking of fish because it would appear the pond is quite able to support a good population of bass, perch and other warm water species.  When I first did my research on Hunts Pond it didn’t sound quite as nice is I found it.  And we went there on Memorial day weekend, which, generally speaking, you don’t find the very best campers.  It’s my experience that a lot of the holiday weekend campers are not accustomed to the wild camping etiquette that most of us prefer.  That is, in my previous history, I have run into a lot of drinking, loud music, raucous  late night parties and barking dogs.  There is really something to be said for socializing your dogs so they don’t bark at every person that goes by.  But of course I suppose a lot of people want a dog that barks when somebody comes to their door.  I suppose it makes them feel safe.  Though in my experience a well trained dog is scarier than one that’s out of control.

So Hunts pond has a very large pond in the shape of an “L”.  And on the elbow of the “L” are a 8 nice drive to back–in campsites.  While they are a little narrow, I’m sure they would accommodate most RVs even with slide outs.  I was surprised at the depth of most of the campsites.  Even the 4 walk-in campsites are fully 50 to 60 feet deep.  Now I will admit some of the ones that are right along the pond I did not measure and may not be that deep, but they sure did have two or three cars, a couple of tents, a picnic table, and a bunch of people on every site.  So I’m thinking they were pretty deep.

It looked like the major activity at the campground was fishing.  Though I did see a number of campfires blazing in the middle of the day. So sitting around the campfire with a cold one also seems to be a popular activity at Hunts Pond.  In walking around the area I did not see any hiking trails so to speak.  The boys and I did find a few animal trails that were easy to follow and there was a well marked snowmobile trail.  However snowmobile trails tend to grow up pretty significantly during the summer and so I don’t know if they will still be obvious in the fall.  It would be interesting to see if the New York State-DEC mows any of those snowmobile trails.  There were signs of actively managed logging around the campground and through the park.  Due to the little cripple with me (Caesar) I didn’t want to try climbing through logging roads and bring home more mud than we already had, but logging trails are often fun to follow.

Hunts pond seems to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere.  I’m not as familiar with this part of Central New York as I am the finger Lakes and the Interstate 81 corridor.  There is the Rogers Environmental Conservation & Education Nature Center in Sherburne  13 miles away.  And you’re pretty close to Cooperstown and the baseball Hall of Fame, just 30 miles away. So it could definitely be a stopover for a couple of days of activities or exploring.  Or it could be just a place to relax and drop a line to see what bites !

The one thing downside I could see is that from May 1 until October 1 you need to get a permit from the Sherburne office of the DEC Lands and Forest people.  I suppose if you were camped there and a ranger came along they might give you a permit if there were open spaces during the week.  But I’m told that weekends are pretty booked two weeks out.  I think easier and less popular are the Brookfield horse trails campsites in the Baker State Forest just north.  I do not believe you need a permit for those, but check the DEC website before you go to make sure or call the Sherburne office.  Call 607-674-4017

And a final important item,  I have  created a playlist that has all my reviews of wild boondocking sites and primitive campsites around New York.  I’ll link to the site here, but, don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me for new and updated reviews of these sites.    It’s also a great help if anybody goes to any of the sites in my YouTube channels they let me know if there’s changes and I’ll go back and do a new video on them.  One of the things I’m noticing on my videos is that videos over a year old don’t get watched very often.  Though I see some of my videos promoted when looking at certain subjects, if there are more newer videos by other creators they tend to get promoted first.

Thanks for either subscribing and/or stopping by.  Hope you get out and go camping.  The boys and I will be looking for you.

Rick, Caesar, Dakota