There are 80 designated campsites in Cattaraugus County in following state forests …
This listing provides the total number of campsites in each forest along with a link to map and photos of forest.
Here is a listing of the individual campsites. The road indicates the nearest road, links on state forest go to DEC website for more information, while the location link takes you to ACME Mapper to see the exact location …
Never walked along this road, it has a number of nice campsites although they don't have cell service for remote work or updating the blog.
Taken on Saturday September 5, 2020 at Green Mountain National Forest.Just taking it slow and easy, it’s summer vacation and it’s a hang out in the National Forest kind of day with rain and thunderstorms almost certain come midday.
Good morning! No rain yet but a fair amount of clouds, muggy. I’d call it times of clouds and sun about 75 degrees at the Finger Lakes National Forest. ⛅ More sun would be nice to charge the solar. 🔋 There is a west breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 69 degrees. Muggy but relief coming with the front this afternoon. The skies will clear around 9 pm.
Been having fun, so far a great vacation, very relaxing. 😁 Got the campsite I wanted, I have so many good healthy foods to eat. 🍏 went for a ride over to Teeter Pond 🚲 and the Horton Pasture hoping to catch a nice sunset 🌇 though it turned out to be grayer than I had hoped with a lot of clouds but listening to the bull frogs 🐸 and cows mooing as dusk approached was nice. Rode back to camp, laid in the hammock for a bit. The brighter light from my headlamp I mounted on my bike works decent, better than the bike light I have. Then around 9:30 decided to ride over to Foster Pond though it was buggy and cloudy when I got there so I didn’t stay long except to watch the froggers 🐸 out in the edge of the pond looking for some frog legs to cook up for dinner. Headlights on that dark road though from oncoming vehicles were quite blinding I must admit!
Today will have showers and thunderstorms before 4pm, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between 4pm and 5pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 5pm. 🌦 High of 74 degrees at 11am. Eight degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 11th. Maximum dew point of 71 at 1pm. 🏖️ Northwest wind 7 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. An improvement over yesterday’s forecast but will be wet. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 89 degrees. The reI aglsotvycord high of 97 was set in 1894.
I plan to get firewood under the tarp before the rain 🌧️. It’s only a matter of time before the rain comes. I actually was expecting a wetter morning then turned out to be, as I put away the hammock last night and anything that I didn’t want to get wet as I’m so used to Albany where a threat of rain always turns out to be a certainty for rain but maybe not so much in the Finger Lakes. Only time will tell. Midday hopefully before the rain, want to ride over to Foster Pond and then up to the top of Hector Backbone 🚵 for the views and to get podcasts to listen to this evening back at camp. 📻 Then probably read in the afternoon, cook up onions and more salmon for dinner. 🐠 Thinking beans with maple 🍁 syrup for a light lunch.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:14 pm with sun having an altitude of 66.2° from the due south horizon (-4.5° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 2.6 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:52 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (290°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (297°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:32 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 14 seconds with dusk around 9:03 pm, which is one minute and 4 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the south-southeast (159°) at an altitude of 16° from the horizon, 230,641 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:45 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 65.
Hoping it will clear out this evening for a nice Finger Lakes sunset 🌇 and it will be starry ✨ and clear to sit down at Foster Pond watching shooting stars. Probably though will be cold and damp though I expect the humidity to drop after the front comes through.
Tonight will have a chance of showers before 8pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 58 degrees at 5am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around August 30th. Maximum dew point of 64 at 6pm. Northwest wind 7 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. In 2022, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 64 degrees. The record low of 44 occurred back in 1968.
Tomorrow and the next four days should be beautiful ☀ and I plan to make the most of them. Tomorrow get a fairly early start, bike most of the Cayuta Valley Rail Trail. 🚲 Then swim at the Watkins Glen Pool, get ice cream at Glen Dairy Bar 🍦, ride along Rock Cabin Road, watch the sunset 🌇 on Seneca Lake. Monday I’m thinking of exploring the gorge at Cornell University and Ithaca bicycle trails and maybe swim 🏊♂️ at Taughannock before heading back to camp. ⛺ Tuesday either paddle Seneca Lake and float in the tube there or maybe head up to Penn Yann – Dresden for the Keuka Valley Trail and ice cream at the Spotted Duck 🦆. Then take it from there.
Looking ahead, next Saturday is Work Like a Dog Day 🐩 when the sun will be setting at 8:24 pm with dusk at 8:54 pm. On that day in 2022, we had hot, humid, partly sunny, patches of fog and temperatures between 93 and 71 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 83 degrees. I guess if swimming and bicycling is working like a dog I’ll be doing that on my final evening of vacation. We hit a record high of 99 back in 1955.
This is a beautiful aerial photo super-imposed on the LiDAR hillshade to show the area with detail as you might see it from an airplane in late winter.
You can drive down to Cheney Pond via an unmarked road along Boreas Road, on top of a hill with a pull-off. The road is somewhat rutted but there is a drive-in campsite at the bottom of the road. From there, you can paddle across Cheney Pond and follow a narrow but navigable stream down to Lester Flow, which is little more then a still water in the Boreas River. At one time, Lester Flow was a all flooded but the dam is long gone, just leaving the still water.
It’s a bit remarkable to think it’s been three years since the pandemic summer when Piseco-Powley Road was closed all summer until October. It was a mixture of supply chain issues and the shut down as COVID spread across the state but it was still horrific to see the destruction brought upon it from the Halloween 2019 storm.
Three years have passed and much of the evidence of repairs has been hidden as the brush regrows and the natural wear and tear and erosion make it look like it did before the storm – generally maintained to a high standard for a dirt road but still subject to the same wear and tear of all dirt roads.
The truth is the closure probably kept a lot of yahoo’s and families away seeking wilderness solitude and a place to party while most other places were closed during the pandemic. Still walking the road prior to the rebuild was jarring with all the damage visible.
The road was fully reopened during October 2020, I camped at the House Pond Campsite for two nights after Thanksgiving to celebrate and witness it’s reopening. It was cold and gray at times but it was wonderful to see it back open again.
This is the view from the campsite at the end of Hammond Pond. There is supposedly a trail along the south end of the lake, which follows an old woods road,but I did not stick around long enough to fully explore it.
Taken on Saturday June 27, 2020 at Hammond Pond.There is this campsite on lower Jessup River Road, up on Hartwick Hill which offers a nice view of the mountains when camping there. Not a lot of shade in the campsite proper, and it’s kind of exposed to the elements, but it offers a fantastic view and cellphone service to boot.
I ended up spending the weekend up there during Labor Day Weekend 2018, it was a nice place to camp, despite only modestly nice weather. But with the bright open area, the view and the good cellphone reception, I think i might go back there next June once the road opens for the summer.
There is some traffic on Jessup River Road, especially in the morning when people are heading out to the mountains to hike, or as with Labor Day Weekend, people heading up to camp. Traffic means noise and dust, but I didn’t find it overly bothersome.
I can’t say enough about the great views for sure. Too bad when I camped most of the weekend was trapped in fog and rain, but next time I go up I expect the weather would be nicer. I would probably go up there in June, when I’m on-call for work, as I could sit up there, do work business using my phone, while sipping a cold beer or leaning back in the hammock.
The great thing about the big open campsite, is it makes for a great place for looking at the stars, and of course having a great big ol’ fire into the night.
Still a few more weeks until June but I sure look forward to those nice nights come the summer.