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Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

Drive-up · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY · 43.79453, -74.16598

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New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.

FREE backcountry primitive camping at Big Bad Luck Pond in the Hudson Gorge Wilderness of New York's ADIRONDACK Forest Preserve (DEC Region 5, in the Indian Lake / Newcomb / Minerva area). This is a DEC-mapped designated primitive tent site ('Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319]'), and New York provides it at NO CHARGE: the DEC Hudson Gorge Wilderness page lists the fee as 'Free' and the unit as open year-round, first-come first-served (no reservations). It is on the northern shore of Big Bad Luck Pond -- reach it on foot; the DEC page describes a trail extending about three miles from the Whortleberry Pond trailhead to the ponds, and no motor vehicles or bicycles are allowed in the wilderness, so you hike in. COUNT DISCLOSURE: the DEC unit page enumerates roughly eleven designated primitive tent sites on this wilderness -- seven on the banks of the Hudson River (water access only: Polaris Bridge, Cedar River, Virgin Falls, Harris Rift Mountain, and three sites on the point opposite the Boreas River) plus two on Whortleberry Pond, one on Big Bad Luck Pond and one on Ross Pond -- as well as three designated campsites on Huntley Pond. DEC's mapping data provides five of these as 'Primitive Tent Site' points under the Hudson Gorge Wilderness label; this batch ships all five (each named by DEC's GIS layer, described on the DEC page, and located on or beside its namesake water in OpenStreetMap) and does not invent the unmapped sites. Several of the other Hudson-River-bank sites (the two remaining Boreas point sites, Virgin Falls, and the Huntley Pond campsites) are already listed under the neighbouring Vanderwhacker Mountain Wild Forest. No pins were invented. This is free, first-come Adirondack Forest Preserve backcountry camping in the Hudson Gorge Wilderness -- do NOT confuse it with a reservable fee campground; the nearest fee campgrounds are the SEPARATE Lake Harris Campground near Newcomb and the Indian Lake Islands Campground on Indian Lake, both miles away, and neither charges to reach these sites. SEASON / ACCESS: DEC lists Hudson Gorge Wilderness as open YEAR-ROUND and free, but every site here is reached on foot (a roughly three-mile hike to the ponds) or by paddling the Hudson River (Wilderness = no motor vehicles and no bicycles) -- trails and the river can be wet, snow-covered, blowdown-blocked, high, low or ice-bound, so confirm current trail, water and site conditions with the DEC Region 5 Northville office (518-863-4545) or the unit page before you go, especially in winter or mud season. RULES: no reservation and no fee; camp only at a designated site (look for the round yellow DEC 'Camp Here' marker) or, elsewhere in the wilderness, more than 150 feet from any road, trail or water; a free Forest Ranger permit is required only if you stay more than 3 nights or camp with a group of 10 or more (arrange it through the DEC Region 5 Office in Northville at (518) 863-4545 (Forest Rangers via 911 or DEC dispatch 1-833-NYS-RANGERS)). This site is around 1700 feet, well below any Adirondack high-elevation camping restriction. These are primitive sites: expect at most a fire ring -- no hookups, no showers and no potable water, so bring water or treat what you take from the pond or river. Pack out all trash, follow Leave No Trace and the DEC fire rules, and store food from bears (this is black-bear country). Confirm current rules, trail/river status and this site's status on the DEC page (dec.ny.gov/places/hudson-gorge-wilderness) or with the Northville office (518-863-4545) before you go; we have not visited.

Can I go now? — Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness) · Hudson Gorge Wilderness · NY

Open today Year-round per the agency record.

New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation record: “Year-round” Read against the calendar on 2026-09-22; with JavaScript your browser re-checks it against today.

USGS topo — contours & terrain

USGS topographic map of Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

Aerial — USGS / NAIP

Aerial image of Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

Weather outlook — at Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

Loading the latest forecast…

Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 1,700 ft.

Fire & smoke — around Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)NIFC · AirNow

Checking active fires & air quality…

Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.

Everything you need — measured from Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness) · Hudson Gorge Wilderness · NY

▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.

Nearest of each

FFuel5 mi
GGrocery5 mi
LLaundry5 mi
EVEV fast charger5 mi
MMechanic5 mi
@Mail5 mi
RxPharmacy11 mi
+Urgent care11 mi
ShShower11 mi
OOutfitter12 mi
DDump19 mi
HHardware21 mi
WWater21 mi
AAir-up45 mi

≤30 mi30–4545+water

The read: water is a real 21-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 5 mi out.

Not within 60 mi: Propane. Plan those before you head up.

One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗

The site — Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

Access

Drive-up

Land

New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Elevation

1,700 ft

Ground slope

4.2% · gentle

Nearest rail line

~5.2 mi · main line

State

Coordinates

43.79453, -74.16598

Cost

Free

Nearby & resupply — around Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness) · Hudson Gorge Wilderness · NY (OpenStreetMap)

Water featureBig Bad Luck Pond · under 0.1 mi · USGS: perennial lake or pond
Nearest townLong Lake · ~17.7 mi
Nearest rail line~5.2 mi · main line
Nearest highwayno interstate or US route within 10 mi
Drinking waternone within 10 mi
FuelFuel · ~5.0 mi
Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
Dump station~19.0 mi
GroceriesRoute 30 One Stop · ~5.0 mi
PharmacyRite Aid Pharmacy · ~11.0 mi
Hospital / clinicNorth Creek Health Center · ~11.0 mi
HardwareCurtis Lumber Co., Inc. · ~20.8 mi

EV charging — from Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness) · Hudson Gorge Wilderness · NY — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)

Nearest public DC fast charger5.0 mi straight-line W — Indian Lake - Welcome Center · VIALYNK · CCS · 4 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
Public DC fast stations within reach4 within 25 mi · 32 within 50 · 263 within 100 · 550 within 150
Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)21.0 mi — Chestertown, NY - Tesla Supercharger, Chestertown
Nearest listing CHAdeMO24.1 mi — EVolve NY North Hudson, North Hudson
Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)6.4 mi — GARNET HILL LOG HOUSE #2, North River, NY · ChargePoint Network · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 405740 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center

Nearby restrooms — around Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness) · Hudson Gorge Wilderness · NY — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)

Highway rest areaHigh Peaks (North) · ~27.5 mi NE
Highway rest areaHigh Peaks (South) · ~27.6 mi NE

Coming out here — Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness) · Hudson Gorge Wilderness · NY

Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Big Bad Luck Pond as a perennial lake or pond, under 0.1 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
Ground slope around the pin: about 4.2% — gentle. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
Rail line mapped ~5.2 mi from the pin — the national rail atlas classes it as a main line. The atlas also records tourist, museum or scenic passenger service on it. That is the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026), which records that a line is there and what class of track it is. Whether anything runs on it, how often, and at what hour, it does not say, and nobody has checked this one for you.
No interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin in the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). That file holds the divided, limited-access highways only — a state expressway or a two-lane US route near this camp would not be in it.
Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.

Open Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness) elsewhere

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Other camps near Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

If this one is full, gated or washed out.

The unit that manages Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] is in Hudson Gorge Wilderness, a wilderness managed by NY DEC. Stay limits, permits, road closures and fire restrictions are set there, not at the campsite — check before you go. Its page maps every camp in it.

Hudson Gorge Wilderness →

How we know this — Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

Open season

Year-round

Permit

Free permit needed only for stays over 3 nights or groups of 10 or more

Closures

None posted

Area rules

Camping is prohibited within 150 feet of any road, trail, spring, stream, pond or other body of water except at areas designated by a "Camp Here" disk.

Source

NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Confidence

Researched — The record is detailed and internally consistent, and the coordinates land where the managing agency says this site is.

How it was placed

NY DEC 'Primitive Campsite' GIS layer (https://gisservices.dec.ny.gov/arcgis/rest/services/dil/dil_land_assets_prm_cmp/MapServer/0), ASSET_UID 18319, NAME verbatim 'Big Bad Luck Pond Campsite', ASSET='PRIMITIVE TENT SITE', PUBLICUSE='Y', FACILITY='Hudson Gorge Wilderness', REGION 5 (Northville office). DESCRIP=''; NOTES=''; ACCESSIBLE='N'. Coordinate is DEC's own point geometry (WGS84), pulled 2026-07-25 via the layer's /query endpoint (outSR=4326). FREE confirmed on dec.ny.gov/places/hudson-gorge-wilderness (Hudson Gorge Wilderness, read 2026-07-25): Fee='Free', open year-round, APSLMP class WILDERNESS; DEC Region 5 Northville 518-863-4545. COUNT DISCLOSURE: the DEC unit page enumerates roughly eleven designated primitive tent sites on this wilderness -- seven on the banks of the Hudson River (water access only: Polaris Bridge, Cedar River, Virgin Falls, Harris Rift Mountain, and three sites on the point opposite the Boreas River) plus two on Whortleberry Pond, one on Big Bad Luck Pond and one on Ross Pond -- as well as three designated campsites on Huntley Pond. DEC's mapping data provides five of these as 'Primitive Tent Site' points under the Hudson Gorge Wilderness label; this batch ships all five (each named by DEC's GIS layer, described on the DEC page, and located on or beside its namesake water in OpenStreetMap) and does not invent the unmapped sites. Several of the other Hudson-River-bank sites (the two remaining Boreas point sites, Virgin Falls, and the Huntley Pond campsites) are already listed under the neighbouring Vanderwhacker Mountain Wild Forest. No pins were invented. HIGH: this site is named both by DEC's GIS 'Primitive Campsite' layer and by the DEC unit page's designated-tent-site description, and its DEC coordinate sits on/beside Big Bad Luck Pond in OpenStreetMap. ACCESS-COST CHECK (guardrail 2): the DEC page names no day-use, parking or access fee anywhere on the unit; NY has no statewide access pass; no named sub-area access permit; only the standard FREE Forest-Ranger permit for stays over 3 nights or groups of 10+. APSLMP CLASS = WILDERNESS (no motor vehicles or bicycles). ELEVATION 1700 ft (USGS EPQS, 2026-07-25) -- far below any Adirondack high-elevation camping restriction. PAID-NEIGHBOUR GUARD: Lake Harris Campground and Indian Lake Islands Campground fee areas (both miles away) bbox-guarded; this site passes. LIVE-CONDITIONS CHECK (DEC unit page, read 2026-07-25): no closure posted. MEASURED GEOMETRY (OpenStreetMap via overpass.kumi.systems, 2026-07-25, point-to-nearest-vertex on `out geom`): ~77 ft to Big Bad Luck Pond, reached via a foot trail the DEC page describes as extending about three miles from the Whortleberry Pond trailhead (OpenStreetMap maps the Whortleberry/Ross trails but not the full spur to Big Bad Luck Pond). CORROBORATION: the DEC GIS point sits ~77 ft from the Big Bad Luck Pond shoreline (OSM way 179158529); the DEC unit page names a designated tent site on the northern shore of Big Bad Luck Pond and DEC's GIS names it 'Big Bad Luck Pond Campsite'; GIS name, DEC page description and OSM pond location all agree. Plus DEC State Land Camping Rules (dec.ny.gov/things-to-do/camping/state-land-rules): designated-site + 150-foot rule, free Forest Ranger permit for stays over 3 nights or 10+ people. Ingest 2026-07-25.

Season

Read from the agency's own season / closure text in this record (data/conditions.py) and checked against the calendar. The words we read are printed under the verdict at the top of the page.

EV chargers

US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.

Field check

On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.

What we don’t know about Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.

Road surface & last-mile access
How many rigs actually fit
Cell coverage by carrier
Current fire restrictions
Whether any water here is drinkable
Shade & wind exposure
Noise and who else shows up
Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it

Before you go — Big Bad Luck Pond Tent Site [DEC #18319] (Hudson Gorge Wilderness)

Camping near a reservoir →Water on public land →The town run →Dispersed camping tips →All field notes →

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