We haven't personally camped here. Everything below is pulled from public land data, USGS maps and OpenStreetMap — a real place on public land, but not field-checked by us. Confirm road conditions, current access, stay limits and fire restrictions before you go.
FREE primitive camping in the Fulton Chain Wild Forest, part of New York's Adirondack Forest Preserve -- Herkimer County (DEC Region 6), in the Old Forge / Inlet lakes country. This is a DEC-designated primitive tent site ('Moss Lake Campsite #4') on Moss Lake, and New York provides it at NO CHARGE: the DEC page lists the fee as 'Free' and the unit is open year-round. PADDLE/BOAT ACCESS: DEC marks this a boat-access site on Moss Lake (~38 ft from the shoreline); the easiest approach is by canoe or kayak across the lake. It is roughly 2404 feet from the nearest road through the woods. DEC's own note on this site: "Boat access". Do NOT confuse this free site with the nearby DEVELOPED, FEE state campgrounds -- Nicks Lake, Alger Island (a paid island-tent campground on Fourth Lake) and Limekiln Lake -- which charge a nightly fee and are separate facilities; this Wild Forest site is free. RULES: this is a designated, first-come, free site -- no reservation and no fee. Standard Adirondack Forest Preserve rules apply: camp only at the designated site, and 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 6 Herkimer Office at 315-866-6330). DEC's page prints no other night limit for this unit, so plan around that statewide 3-night default and confirm on site. This is a primitive site: expect a fire ring and, at most of the Moss Lake sites, a nearby pit privy -- no hookups, no showers and no potable water, so bring water or treat what you take from the lake. 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 and this site's status on the DEC page (dec.ny.gov/places/fulton-chain-wild-forest) or with the Herkimer office (315-866-6330) before you go; we have not visited.
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 17025, NAME verbatim 'Moss Lake Campsite #4', ASSET='PRIMITIVE TENT SITE', PUBLICUSE='Y', FACILITY='Fulton Chain Wild Forest'; coordinate is DEC's own point geometry (WGS84), pulled 2026-07-24 via the layer's /query endpoint (outSR=4326). FREE confirmed on dec.ny.gov/places/fulton-chain-wild-forest (Fulton Chain Wild Forest, read 2026-07-24): Fee='Free', Open for Recreation='Year-round', 'Moss Lake has designated primitive campsites all scattered around the lake ... Camping elsewhere on the Fulton Chain Wild Forest is allowed as long as the chosen site is more than 150 feet from a road, trail or any water body'; Herkimer County, DEC Region 6, 315-866-6330. This slug LOADS (no 404). PAID-NEIGHBOUR GUARD (Debar rule): the page names three developed FEE campgrounds nearby -- Nicks Lake, Alger Island and Limekiln Lake; their OSM bounding boxes were pulled (OSM API 2026-07-24) and a point-in-box test confirms this site is inside NONE of them. LIVE-CONDITIONS CHECK (DEC Backcountry Information for the Adirondack Park, read 2026-07-24, stamped 'New this week (7/23/2026)'): only a Rondaxe/Bald Mountain 'No Parking' note, no campsite closure for this unit. COUNT: 18 GIS PTS for the facility -> 13 ingested; 4 DeCamps Island sites HELD (DEC GIS note on ASSET_UID 18984: 'This Campsite Will Likely Be Retained, Others Will Have To Be Closed To Comply With Apslmp' -- current designation of the four unconfirmable) and Moss #2.5 (ASSET_UID 17005) EXCLUDED (DEC note 'An Unofficial Spread Of Campsite #2'). MEASURED GEOMETRY (OpenStreetMap, 2026-07-24): ~38 ft to the Moss Lake shoreline (OSM relation 8423657, 75 vertices), 1011 ft to the nearest mapped foot trail, 2404 ft to the nearest drivable road; access class 'paddle-in'; DEC per-site note 'Boat access'. No OSM camp_site nodes in the unit bbox, so DEC point geometry is the sole coordinate source. 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 2026-07-24.
Field check
Not verified on the ground. Nobody from here has camped it. It stays at Researched until someone does.
What we don’t know
A land record can put you within a few metres of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
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