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Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

Drive-up · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY · 44.43149, -73.80022

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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 first-come primitive camping at the Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site, one of exactly two DEC-designated backcountry tent sites in the Wilmington Wild Forest (eastern Adirondack Park near Whiteface Mountain and the West Branch AuSable River; Essex/Clinton Counties, DEC Region 5). This site sits along the Cooper Kiln Trail, a short distance from the Copper Kill East Trailhead on Bonnieview Road. New York provides it at NO CHARGE: the DEC page lists the unit as 'Free' and open year-round and says 'There are two designated primitive tent sites for backcountry camping,' locating one on the Cooper Kiln Trail near the Copper Kill East Trailhead (Bonnieview Road) and the other off the River Trail of the Wilmington Flume Trail Network. This is a remote, no-reservation backcountry site reached on foot from a free DEC trailhead -- no fee and no facilities (no hookups, no showers, no potable water). IMPORTANT -- this is NOT the paid Wilmington Notch or Taylor Pond campground: those are separate DEC fee campgrounds (Wilmington Notch is about 1.3 miles away); this designated tent site is free. On the ground, camp at the marked designated site (round yellow DEC 'Camp Here' disc); if you camp at large instead, stay at least 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 Ray Brook Office at (518) 897-1200 (Forest Rangers via 911 or 1-833-NYS-RANGERS / 1-833-697-7264)). Bring or treat all water, pack out all trash, follow Leave No Trace and the DEC fire rules, and store food from bears (this is black-bear country). SEASON / ACCESS: DEC lists the unit as open year-round, but Adirondack access and conditions vary by season and trail/lean-to status can change (the Cooper Kiln Pond lean-to was recently dismantled for rebuilding) -- confirm current conditions and this site's status on the DEC page (dec.ny.gov/places/wilmington-wild-forest) or with the DEC Region 5 office (518-897-1200) before you go; we have not visited.

Can I go now? — Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · 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 Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

Aerial — USGS / NAIP

Aerial image of Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

Weather outlook — at Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

Loading the latest forecast…

Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 1,326 ft.

Fire & smoke — around Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)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 Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY

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

Nearest of each

FFuel3 mi
GGrocery3 mi
OOutfitter3 mi
@Mail3 mi
MMechanic5 mi
WWater6 mi
DDump6 mi
ShShower6 mi
RxPharmacy14 mi
EVEV fast charger14 mi
HHardware14 mi
+Urgent care15 mi
LLaundry17 mi

≤30 mi30–4545+water

The read: water's a short hop out, fuel & food sit about 3 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 — Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

Access

Drive-up

Land

New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Elevation

1,326 ft

Ground slope

3.1% · gentle

State

Coordinates

44.43149, -73.80022

Cost

Free

Nearby & resupply — around Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY (OpenStreetMap)

Water featurePettigrew Brook · ~0.1 mi · USGS: perennial stream
Also mapped (OSM)Little Black Brook (stream) · mapped within 1.6 mi
Nearest townHaselton · ~2.1 mi
Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
Drinking waterDrinking water · ~6.2 mi
FuelMobil · ~3.0 mi
Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
Dump station~6.2 mi
GroceriesLittle Super Market · ~3.0 mi
PharmacyKinney Drugs · ~16.9 mi
Hospital / clinicAdirondack Medical Center at Lake Placid · ~14.5 mi
HardwareAubuchon Hardware · ~13.8 mi

EV charging — from Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)

Nearest public DC fast charger13.7 mi straight-line SW — GRANDVIEW HOTEL OLYMPIC 01, Lake Placid, NY · ChargePoint Network · CCS · 1 fast port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
Public DC fast stations within reach21 within 25 mi · 62 within 50 · 154 within 100 · 351 within 150
Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)14.0 mi — Lake Placid, NY - Tesla Supercharger, Lake Placid
Nearest listing CHAdeMO23.9 mi — EVolve NY Plattsburgh, Plattsburgh
Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)5.3 mi — Parking Lot, Jay, NY (at a parking lot) · EVOKE · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: not listed
Also listed, not counted aboveLevel 2, restricted access — Mirror Lake Inn Resort, Lake Placid, 13.1 mi · J1772 · hours: 24 hours daily; customer use only
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 372635 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center

Nearby restrooms — around Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)

Highway rest areaValcour · ~19.3 mi NE
Highway rest areaHigh Peaks (South) · ~29.0 mi S
Highway rest areaHigh Peaks (North) · ~29.2 mi S

Coming out here — Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY

Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Pettigrew Brook as a perennial stream, ~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 3.1% — 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.
No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on 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 Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest) elsewhere

Google satellite →Gaia GPS →CalTopo →Back to the map →

Other camps near Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

If this one is full, gated or washed out.

Who holds the land at Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

USGS’s Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1, queried 2026-09-23) lists the ground at this pin as Wilmington Wild Forest, manager on record: NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (state). That names who holds the land — it is not a statement that camping is permitted here.

How we know this — Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

Open season

Year-round

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 10894, GIS NAME is BLANK (''); display name 'Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site' is DERIVED from the DEC page's own description of the second designated site ('along the Cooper Kill Trail just a short distance from the Copper Kill East Trailhead on the Bonnieview Road' -- DEC's own place names use the 'Cooper Kiln' spelling), ASSET='PRIMITIVE TENT SITE', PUBLICUSE='Y', ACCESSIBLE='N', FACILITY='Wilmington Wild Forest', DEC Region 5. DESCRIP=''; NOTES=''. Coordinate is DEC's own point geometry (WGS84), pulled 2026-07-26 via the layer's /query endpoint (outSR=4326, one paced curl request -- the DEC GIS host rate-blocks bursts). FREE confirmed on dec.ny.gov/places/wilmington-wild-forest (Wilmington Wild Forest, read 2026-07-26): 'Fee: Free', open year-round, Towns of Wilmington, Jay, Keene and St. Armand (Essex Co.) + Black Brook (Clinton Co.), DEC Region 5 - Eastern Adirondacks/Lake Champlain. The page states verbatim: 'There are two designated primitive tent sites for backcountry camping. One is located along the Cooper Kill Trail just a short distance from the Copper Kill East Trailhead on the Bonnieview Road. The other is located off the River Trail of the Wilmington Flume Trail Network just a short distance from the trailhead.' CONFIDENCE (HIGH): the page ENUMERATES a firm count (two designated primitive tent sites) that MATCHES the GIS count (2) and locates each site; the two GIS points map 1:1 to those two descriptions (this point = the Cooper-Kiln-Trail site) -- the enumeration-matches-GIS + per-location HIGH basis (Crystal Lake / Split Rock / Sentinel Range), not the count-only MED basis. LOCATION CORROBORATION: OSM way 544660857 'Cooper Kiln Pond Trail' 68 ft away and OSM node 11918212969 'Cooper Kill Pond Trailhead' 139 ft away (`out geom`, overpass.kumi.systems, 2026-07-26). ELEVATION ~1326 ft (USGS EPQS, 2026-07-26) -- low valley elevation, no high-elevation camping restriction applies. PAID-NEIGHBOUR (guardrail 2): a ray-cast point-in-polygon test placed the Flume site OUTSIDE the DEC Wilmington Notch developed FEE campground (OSM way 899899708, fee=yes), 1.31 mi from its nearest boundary; the DEC page itself lists Wilmington Notch / Taylor Pond as SEPARATE fee campgrounds 'for day trips into the forest'. Both tent sites are backcountry sites reached on foot from FREE DEC trailheads (Flume TH on NY-86; Copper Kill East / Cooper Kiln Pond TH on Bonnieview Rd), so no access/day-use/permit fee attaches. NOTE: a page banner (read 2026-07-26) reports the Cooper Kiln Pond LEAN-TO dismantled for rebuild -- a lean-to, not this tent site, but confirm current conditions. LEGALITY (guardrail 1): DEC-DESIGNATED primitive tent site, publicly-usable, first-come, no-reservation, per DEC State Land Camping Rules (dec.ny.gov/things-to-do/camping/state-land-rules). Ingest 2026-07-26.

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 Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

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 — Cooper Kiln Trail Primitive Tent Site [DEC #10894] (Wilmington Wild Forest)

Finding water out here →Cold-weather camping →Fire rules & restrictions →First-night troubleshooting →All field notes →

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This page was built from a public land record, not from a visit. If you have actually pulled in here and it does not match, that is worth more than anything we can read off a map. Tell Dave what is off — it goes to him, not onto the page.

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