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Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)

Drive-up · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY · 41.94933, -74.63416

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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 Long Pond Tent Site (west), one of two DEC-designated tent sites at Long Pond in the Willowemoc Wild Forest (Sullivan County, town of Neversink, southwestern Catskill Park, DEC Region 3). New York provides it at NO CHARGE: the DEC page lists the unit as 'Free' and open year-round, and says 'Primitive camping is allowed at sites marked with round, yellow, DEC markers' (plus at-large primitive camping). Long Pond is a small backcountry pond reached on the Long Pond - Beaverkill Ridge Trail (about 0.7 mi in from the Flugertown Road trailhead near Willowemoc); it also has an Adirondack-style lean-to on its eastern shore. This is a FREE, first-come, designated site -- no reservation, no fee, and no facilities (no hookups, no showers, no potable water). CONFIDENCE / RULES NOTE -- please read: this is MEDIUM confidence. The DEC page confirms designated marked sites exist and at-large camping is allowed but does NOT publish a count of the tent sites, so treat this as an established, DEC-mapped designated Long Pond site rather than a certified specific one; on the ground, camp only where you see a round yellow DEC 'Camp Here' disc, and keep any at-large camp at least 150 feet from the trail, road, 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 3 office at (845) 256-3076 (Forest Rangers via 911 or 1-833-NYS-RANGERS / 1-833-697-7264)). Bring water or treat what you take from the pond, 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 Catskill access and conditions vary by season -- confirm current conditions and this site's status on the DEC page (dec.ny.gov/places/willowemoc-wild-forest) or with the DEC Region 3 office (845-256-3076) before you go; we have not visited.

Can I go now? — Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc 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 Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)

Aerial — USGS / NAIP

Aerial image of Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)

Weather outlook — at Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)

Loading the latest forecast…

Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 1,977 ft.

Fire & smoke — around Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc 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 Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc 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

+Urgent care6 mi
FFuel7 mi
GGrocery7 mi
DDump8 mi
WWater8 mi
ShShower8 mi
@Mail9 mi
RxPharmacy12 mi
MMechanic12 mi
HHardware12 mi
LLaundry12 mi
OOutfitter12 mi
EVEV fast charger14 mi
AAir-up19 mi
PPropane55 mi

≤30 mi30–4545+water

The read: water's a short hop out, fuel & food sit about 7 mi out.

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 — Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)

Access

Drive-up

Land

New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Elevation

1,977 ft

Ground slope

4.7% · gentle

State

Coordinates

41.94933, -74.63416

Cost

Free

Nearby & resupply — around Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY (OpenStreetMap)

Water featureWillowemoc Creek · under 0.1 mi · USGS: perennial stream
Also mapped (OSM)Long Pond (water) · mapped within 1.6 mi
Nearest townWillowemoc · ~2.9 mi
Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
Drinking waterDrinking water · ~8.1 mi
FuelLew Beach General Store · ~8.7 mi
Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
Dump station~8.0 mi
GroceriesCannie D's · ~7.2 mi
PharmacyK&K PHARMACY · ~11.9 mi
Hospital / clinicSun River Health · ~12.3 mi
HardwareWestlake Ace Hardware · ~26.4 mi

EV charging — from Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)

Nearest public DC fast charger14.2 mi straight-line W — Roscoe, NY - Tesla Supercharger (at a restaurant) · Tesla · NACS (Tesla) · 8 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-06-18 · hours: 24 hours daily. Open to Teslas only. · directions
Public DC fast stations within reach5 within 25 mi · 80 within 50 · 704 within 100 · 1435 within 150
Nearest listing CCS14.4 mi — NYC FLEET DEP_ARKVLE_1_L3, Arkville
Nearest listing CHAdeMO14.4 mi — NYC FLEET DEP_ARKVLE_1_L3, Arkville
Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)6.9 mi — Foster Supply Hospitality, Neversink, NY · VIALYNK · J1772 · 4 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 118946 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center

Nearby restrooms — around Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)

Highway rest areaRoscoe · ~11.9 mi W
RestroomCallicoon PA Access Seasonal Toilet · ~25.5 mi SW · NPS
RestroomRivers Bend Restroom #1 · ~25.6 mi S · NPS
Highway rest areaEast Branch · ~27.2 mi W

Coming out here — Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest) · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY

Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Willowemoc Creek as a perennial stream, 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 4.7% — 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 Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest) elsewhere

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

Other camps near Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)

If this one is full, gated or washed out.

Who holds the land at Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)

USGS’s Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1, queried 2026-09-23) lists the ground at this pin as Willowemoc 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 — Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)

Open season

Year-round

Permit

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

Source

NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Confidence

Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.

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 228960, NAME verbatim 'Long Pond tent site', ASSET='PRIMITIVE TENT SITE', PUBLICUSE='Y', ACCESSIBLE='Y', FACILITY='Willowemoc Wild Forest', DEC Region 3. 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/willowemoc-wild-forest (Willowemoc Wild Forest, read 2026-07-26): 'Fee: Free', open year-round, Sullivan and Ulster County, DEC Region 3 (845) 256-3076; the page states 'Primitive camping is allowed at sites marked with round, yellow, DEC markers. Additionally, at large primitive camping is allowed,' names two lean-tos (Quick Lake and Long Pond), and gives the 150-ft rule + a free Forest Ranger permit for stays over 3 nights or groups of 10+. CONFIDENCE (MED): the page does NOT enumerate a count of designated tent sites, so this is the COUNT-only / at-large basis (Blue Mountain / Slide Mountain / Sargent Ponds lesson) -- the point is an established DEC-designated tent site but cannot be certified 1:1 against a page slot, so it ships at the honest MEDIUM floor, not HIGH. ACCESSIBLE='Y' is DEC's GIS flag, recorded here for provenance but deliberately NOT marketed as an ADA site: the page corroborates only accessible LEAN-TOS, nothing about an ADA-compliant Long Pond tent site, so an ADA claim would over-read the flag. IDENTITY/LOCATION CORROBORATION: OSM has no water polygon for Long Pond, but OSM way 286196310 'Long Pond - Beaverkill Ridge Trail (Red)' has its western terminus ~11 ft from site 228971 (this point is ~287 ft from that trail; `out geom`, overpass.kumi.systems, 2026-07-26). Independent of DEC, Long Pond + its lean-to (eastern shore) and the Flugertown Rd (Neversink) trailhead are confirmed by the NYSDEC lands page (dec.ny.gov/lands/9146.html), AllTrails and Trailkeeper.org. ELEVATION ~1977 ft (USGS EPQS, 2026-07-26) -- far below the 3,500-ft Catskill camping ban; no elevation restriction applies. PAID-NEIGHBOUR (guardrail 2): DEC's Mongaup Pond and Little Pond developed fee campgrounds are separate facilities miles away; no access/day-use/permit fee attaches to this backcountry site. LEGALITY (guardrail 1): DEC-designated, 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 Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc 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 — Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)

Camping near a reservoir →Finding water out here →Cold-weather camping →Reading the aerial →All field notes →

Is this page wrong about Long Pond Tent Site (west) [DEC #228960] (Willowemoc Wild Forest)?

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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A reader report is not a fact, and this one will not change a word of this page by itself. Dave reads it and checks it against the agency’s own record, because that record is what this site says. If reader reports are ever shown here they are labelled “reader report, unverified” with the date, and they are never merged into the agency fields.