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Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest)

Drive-up · New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation · NY · 41.87223, -74.36970

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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 primitive camping in Sundown Wild Forest, part of New York's CATSKILL Forest Preserve (DEC Region 3, Ulster County -- the Ashokan High Point / Vernooy Kill Falls country). This is a DEC-designated primitive tent site ('Vernooy Falls primitive tent site', on Vernooy Kill), and New York provides it at NO CHARGE: the DEC Sundown Wild Forest page lists the fee as 'Free' and the unit as open year-round, first-come first-served. HIKE-IN: this is a foot-access Catskill Forest Preserve site, about 131 feet from the Long Path (blue); plan on roughly a 0.9-mile walk in from the nearest public road/trailhead. Note: a second site near Vernooy Kill Falls, about 230 feet from the Vernooy Kill; roughly 0.9 mile straight-line (about a 1-mile walk on the Long Path) in from the end of Trails End Road. No nearby OSM camp_site node, so DEC's coordinate is the sole source. This is free Catskill Forest Preserve backcountry -- do NOT confuse it with the Peekamoose Valley 'Lower Field' sites a few miles west along County Route 42, which are on the paid Reserve America system and require a $10 permit (all visitors, including campers) from May 15 to September 15; this site is well outside that permit corridor. SEASON / ACCESS: DEC lists Sundown Wild Forest as open YEAR-ROUND and free, but these are foot-access (or road-end) Catskill backcountry sites; the trailhead roads (Watson Hollow Road, Trails End Road) are minor mountain roads that may not be plowed or maintained in winter and can wash out -- confirm current road, gate and trail status with the New Paltz office (845-256-3076) before you go. RULES: this is a designated, first-come first-served free site -- no reservation and no fee. Look for the yellow 'Camp Here' disc that marks each designated site. Standard Catskill Forest Preserve rules apply: camp only at the designated site, keep 150 feet from water/trails/roads unless the site itself is marked closer, 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 3 New Paltz Office at (845) 256-3076 (Forest Rangers via 911 or DEC dispatch)). DEC prints no other night limit for these sites, so plan around that statewide 3-night default and confirm on site. This is a primitive backcountry site: expect at most a fire ring -- no privy, no hookups, no showers and no potable water, so carry water or treat what you take from a brook. 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, road/trail status and this site's status on the DEC page (dec.ny.gov/places/sundown-wild-forest) or with the New Paltz office (845-256-3076) before you go; we have not visited.

Can I go now? — Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest) · Sundown Wild Forest · 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 Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest)

Aerial — USGS / NAIP

Aerial image of Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest)

Weather outlook — at Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest)

Loading the latest forecast…

Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 1,694 ft.

Fire & smoke — around Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown 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 Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest) · Sundown Wild Forest · NY

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

Nearest of each

GGrocery8 mi
FFuel8 mi
MMechanic8 mi
@Mail8 mi
LLaundry10 mi
EVEV fast charger10 mi
HHardware11 mi
RxPharmacy11 mi
DDump11 mi
WWater11 mi
ShShower13 mi
AAir-up15 mi
+Urgent care15 mi
OOutfitter17 mi
PPropane51 mi

≤30 mi30–4545+water

The read: water's a short hop out, fuel & food sit about 8 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 — Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest)

Access

Drive-up

Land

New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Elevation

1,694 ft

Ground slope

5.7% · gentle

State

Coordinates

41.87223, -74.36970

Cost

Free

Nearby & resupply — around Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest) · Sundown Wild Forest · NY (OpenStreetMap)

Water featureVernooy Kill · under 0.1 mi · USGS: perennial stream
Nearest townRiggsville · ~1.6 mi
Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
Drinking waternone within 10 mi
FuelFuel · ~7.6 mi
Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
Dump station~11.3 mi
GroceriesStewart's · ~7.5 mi
PharmacyNekos Boiceville Pharmacy · ~10.7 mi
Hospital / clinicEllenville Regional Hospital · ~9.7 mi
HardwareTrue Value · ~17.8 mi

EV charging — from Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest) · Sundown Wild Forest · NY — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)

Nearest public DC fast charger10.5 mi straight-line S — HondoGo - Ellenville, NY · EVGATEWAY · CCS · 4 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
Public DC fast stations within reach22 within 25 mi · 85 within 50 · 880 within 100 · 1503 within 150
Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)17.8 mi — New Paltz, NY - Tesla Supercharger, New Paltz
Nearest listing CHAdeMO20.4 mi — PRESHYUN PKG 1, Kingston
Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)10.7 mi — Trudy Resnick Farber Center, Ellenville, NY · VIALYNK · J1772, CCS · 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 451459 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center

Nearby restrooms — around Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest) · Sundown Wild Forest · NY — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)

RestroomFederal restroom · ~18.3 mi SE · FWS
Highway rest areaUlster Travel Plaza · ~21.4 mi NE
RestroomPavilion · ~22.6 mi E · NPS
RestroomRivers Bend Restroom #1 · ~22.8 mi SW · NPS

Coming out here — Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest) · Sundown Wild Forest · NY

Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Vernooy Kill 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 5.7% — 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 Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest) elsewhere

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Other camps near Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest)

If this one is full, gated or washed out.

The unit that manages Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest)

Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] is in Sundown Wild Forest, a wild forest 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.

Sundown Wild Forest →

How we know this — Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest)

Open season

Year-round

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 228992, NAME verbatim 'Vernooy Falls primitive tent site', ASSET='PRIMITIVE TENT SITE', PUBLICUSE='Y', FACILITY='Sundown Wild Forest', REGION 3 (New Paltz office). DESCRIP/NOTES blank; ACCESSIBLE='N' (no accessibility claim). 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/sundown-wild-forest (Sundown Wild Forest, read 2026-07-24): Fee='Free', open year-round, first-come/first-served; DEC Region 3 New Paltz 845-256-3076. COUNT/FEE DISCLOSURE: GIS tags 17 designated PTS to this facility; 12 of them are the 'Lower Field' Peekamoose Valley sites (UIDs 228169-228180) which are NOT free -- all visitors incl. campers need a $10 Reserve America permit May 15-Sep 15 plus a paid reservation (parkId 5935, sites L001-L012), per the DEC press release 2021/5 and the unit page -- so those 12 are EXCLUDED and only the 5 genuinely-free backcountry sites are shipped. This site is 4.7-6.9 mi from the Blue Hole, OUTSIDE that permit corridor. APSLMP CLASS = WILD FOREST (motor vehicles allowed on designated public roads). ACCESS-COST CHECK (guardrail 2): no entry/day-use/parking/launch fee stated for this site; only the standard FREE Forest-Ranger permit for >3 nights or 10+ groups. PAID-NEIGHBOUR GUARD: the Peekamoose Blue Hole / Lower Field paid corridor is bbox-guarded; this site passes. LIVE-CONDITIONS CHECK (DEC Sundown WF page, read 2026-07-24): only posted advisory is the Lower Field flooding closure (a paid site, excluded); nothing against this site. MEASURED GEOMETRY (OpenStreetMap via maps.mail.ru Overpass, 2026-07-24, point-to-vertex): ~228 ft to Vernooy Kill (OSM), on/near the water; 4900 ft to the nearest DRIVABLE public road/trailhead; 131 ft to the Long Path (blue); access class 'hike-in'. No OSM camp_site node nearby -- 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.

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 Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown 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 — Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown Wild Forest)

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

Is this page wrong about Vernooy Falls primitive tent site [DEC #228992] (Sundown 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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