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Driving Thru Moose River Plains

In preparation for my summer vacation I decided to drive through the Moose River Plains Wild Forest. This area has been subject to quite a bit of controversy over the years, in part from the environmentalists who do not believe “drive-in” camping is appropiate use of Adirondack Wild Forest, and most recently from the State DEC which threatened to close this 30 mile truck trail due to a lack of funds.

While my camera was broken while I was able to grab a few pictures. I will take more when I get back from my week up there.

Parked Along Cedar River Road

Here is the route. The first 5 miles of Cedar Plains Road from Indian Lake is black top, and rapidly transitions to rough dirt road.


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Around 7 miles in you reach the beautiful Wakely Pond, with Wakely Mountain in the background, where there is a fire tower up top..

Wakely Pond

About 11 miles in you reach the Cedar River Flow, a big field camping area next to the dammed up Cedar River, creating a large man-made lake.


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Cedar River Entrance Sign

The beautiful Cedar River.

Otherside of Dam at Cedard River Flow

At the start of Moose River Road, there are two cabins and a sign in booth, along with the field camping that is popular with RVs.

Moose River Plains Overview


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Along the next 20 miles of Moose River Plains Road, there are about 150 campsites, used by tent campers and RVs alike. Many are located far off the roads, and provide a great deal of privacy. The landscape is one of hills, mountains, and deep valleys, and then eventually becomes open sandy plains as you head east. It’s over an hour drive from here to Inlet, via a very rough state truck trail.


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You really can’t drive much above 15 miles per hour, and sections of the road are washed out and one must avoid them.

More pictures to come after vacation…

Deer River State Forest

In south-western Franklin County there is a state forest with approximently 12,00 acres of land, and almost 12 miles of truck trail. Most of it is wooded and moderately hilly, with acres of swamps and rivers, with substainal access via truck trail.

Truck Trail

There are three campsites along Conservation Road, with one at Iron Bridge on the Deer River. This is a popular site, one with limited nearby firewood. You probably could drive to another portion of the forest, chop up some wood, and drive back so you have enough for camping.

Packing Up

The site is number 5, although I was only able to find sites one and two nearby. The other ones must be on other roads. I didn’t drive all over Deer River State Forest, due to the noise the hubs where making on the truck, worrying me about a potential breakdown/failure with the bad hubs.

Site Name

Parts of Conservation Road where relatively rough and potholed, but compared to some of the other roads it wasn’t all that bad.

Conservation Road

At Iron Bridge, there is a popular swimming hole. I went in both in them evening to cool off and in the morning to bathe.

Swimming Hole

Right now, the area is only open to pickup trucks, horses, mountain bikers and hikers. Hopefully the DEC will open it up to legal ATV access, as was planned under the Governor Pataki administration, prior to a lawsuit brought by the enviros.

Here is a map of a Deer River State Forest where I camped. There are many other areas of the state forest I could have explored if I had spent more time up there. It was a nice place.


View Hikes of 2009 in a larger map

A trip into a dark and scary land? 👨‍🌾

I’m tired of people telling me that as soon as you leave the borders of New York State that you literally fall off the edge of the earth – descending into a deep, darkish hell of religious cults, perfectly flat and boring land where you can see curvature of the earth, dark and dingy cities under clouds of black smoke from outdated factories where everybody lives short and brutish lives.

Somehow I just don’t think that’s true from the various trips I’ve taken in Central and Western Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia. Places where you tell about and you get a blank expression on people’s faces. There are likely many fascinating and delightful places in America that aren’t the tourist books, that are charming and unique. Maybe the reason it’s a blank space on the map is not because there is nothing of value there but because the map maker left it off the map intentionally or otherwise.

I should explore some of these places. I feel like my world is too small and the Midwest and Rockies offers a lot too see. I’m tired of everything being just one big suburban subdivision, always hearing just one right view on everything, with everything else being dangerous and wrong. Upstate New York really is very crowded, and while you can get some rural deep country it’s often still tied back into the urban zeitgeist of New York City Metro Area that represents 70% of the state.

Maybe it’s time to board a plane, head for one of the big cities along the Missouri River, rent a car and drive west to the Rockies, heading through Nebraska and South Dakota, taking two lane highways except to bypass the cities. Drive as much as possible each day with a careful eye on the landscape. Visit some parks and national forests, but not make that the sole part of the trip but as an aside. Maybe occasionally stay in motels but also hammock camp or get some shut eye along the road. Maybe find a city of 20,000 to 40,000 that I like the countryside around that is affordable and has low unemployment that I like the vibe. Not for next week but to keep in the back pocket for my future.

I Guess Columbus Day Weekend Isn’t a Complete Washout 🌧 🤛🏻 ⛵ 🍂

Totally bummed out about this weekend, but maybe I shouldn’t be. It didn’t rain until quite late into the night and this morning the rain has slackened up quite a bit. Maybe it will be nice enough to go for a bike ride to Voorheesville or Five Rivers — and it might be pretty to check out the Pine Hollow Arboretum which amazingly enough I’ve never been there. Almost rain free-enough to make me wish I had headed out of town to get camping. Maybe tomorrow but it’s likely going to be cold and windy, and probably still damp. We’ll see come the morning, I got to start working on packing and thinking about West Virginia sooner rather then later.

Good morning! Happy Saturday on this rather Rainy Start to Columbus Day Weekend! Rain showers, at least a few drops of rain here and there and 65 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 63 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 10 am.

I slept in until 5:50 AM when my alarm went off ⏰ got up and make oatmeal-banana pancakes to start off my morning. 😵 Lots of coffee ☕ so I waited a while before heading out in case I had to piss up a storm, and ended up deciding bicycling was a safer option lest I needed to pee 🚽 or the sky opened up with rain. ☔

Today will have showers and possibly a thunderstorm. ⛈ Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Temperature falling to around 57 by 5pm. Southeast wind 7 to 9 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between 2 and 3 inches possible. Yeah, even though it’s not raining right now, I’m glad I’m not camping in that kind of crap. That’s a lot of rain. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 71 degrees. The record high of 89 was set in 1963.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:44 pm with sun having an altitude of 42° from the due south horizon (-28.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:51 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (257°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (263°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:28 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 56 seconds with dusk around 6:55 pm, which is one minute and 43 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:29 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 56 degrees. The dew point will be 54 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 11 mph. Tomorrow will have 11 hours and 27 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 50 seconds over today.

Tonight will have showers, mainly before 1am. 🌧 Low of 47 degrees at 5am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 3rd. Northwest wind around 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. In 2022, we had partly cloudy skies. It got down to 38 degrees. The record low of 21 occurred back in 1964.

For tomorrow, Sunday, things may improve. ⛅ A slight chance of showers before 8am, then a slight chance of showers after noon. Partly sunny, with a high near 59. Southwest wind 8 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. That wind will make it cool but maybe I should plan to do some biking and camping out of town. 🏕 I heard there is some pretty good color in the Catskills. And for Columbus Day, cool but mostly sunny, with a high near 59. South wind around 9 mph. That does seem like an improvement over earlier forecasts. 😀 My parents are out of town this weekend, so I won’t be visiting them this weekend, so I am kind of free to do whatever I want this weekend both days and I don’t have to rush home. I have enough clothes for the upcoming week for work, as it’s going to be cool and I wore t-shirt and shorts all last week, including the day I was off. 👖 I will have to go to the laundromat later in the week though before I head down to West Virginia. Assuming that’s where I end up — if it looks truly cold and wet for the following week I could change my plans to be closer to home, but regardless I plan to camp for the full week. 🤷‍♂️

I am watching the forecast for both here in Delmar, Wellsboro Penna and Thomas WV, 🌧 and I’m not pleased with how much rain I’m seeing, though 7 days out it really is just a crap shoot. The rain numbers are quite meaningless at this point as so much could change. If it rains on my drive down to WV it’s not the end of the world, I don’t need to take a million different side trips. I’ll skip the Pine Creek Rail Trail 🚂 and the C-O Canal Trail 🚲 until later in the week or not at all, and mostly just drive down, and hunker down at camp. 🚘 Once I’m in West Virginia once camp’s set up the rain is less of an issue. Indeed, the 8-14 day outlook suggests especially in West Virginia in the mid-Atlantic states it might be a fairly dry week but cool. 😎 I’ll take that as long as there isn’t snow. ❄️

I will be bringing my heater, and can hot tent if it’s really cold up in Canaan Heights but I want to have sunny days for hiking and bicycling, plus it makes the scenery better. ♨️ I hear they’re getting their first likely frost in the high country this weekend, so by next weekend it should still be close to peak color, without the crowds of Columbus Day Weekend. 👪 There is a reason I waited to later this year, plus it seems like autumn is occurring each year a bit later — and the High Country of West Virginia is more like the Hilltowns climate-wise then the mountains of New York due to the more southerly location.

I found my West Virginia maps including the Monongahela National Forest 🗺 along with the Pine Creek Rail Trail and several other Pennsylvania State Parks I may want to visit on the way down assuming it’s not raining. I am going to print up at work a few small scale maps of Canaan Heights and some other trails in the Otter Creek and Dolly Sods Wilderness at work, 🖨 assuming I can find a printer that still works in the office, lol. 🤣 No-ones going to care if I print up like four pages, assuming that the machine still works as nobody prints much anymore work-related. Then it’s just clothes and supplies to pack for camping. I will bring a fair amount of food with me, but only one cooler as it will be cool enough that most fruits and vegetables don’t need cooling, and I don’t eat nearly as much meat and dairy as I once did. 🥩 🥛 I’m not a vegetarian but healthier, whole foods that are low on saturated fats really don’t need as much refrigeration.

The past few days I’ve been getting a ton of blog traffic 🗺 🤖 I think with people looking for places to camp and hike for the Columbus Day Weekend. One day I pulled in over $10 in ad revenue, and I’m in the low-$30s of what I’ve pulled in over the past week and a half of running ads. I think I will be close to $70 by the end of month, and while I won’t get paid until I rack up $100 in revenue, I think by December 1st I’ll probably be getting my first check 💰 which could easily be above $130 by my own estimates, though it depends how much demand drops for my blog as the winter season approaches. ☃ Traffic usually drops fairly low in December and January. Maybe I need to do more maps relating to skiing and snowmobiling or winter camping locations. 🏕 But it will pick up again come April and May, having looked at my old web logs. It’s good because the $540 check to the web host goes out tomorrow for the next three years. Hopefully, within a year I’ll made enough from blog ads to be made whole, all while enjoying telling my story.

Looking ahead, there are 4 weeks until Daylight Savings Time Ends 🛥️ when the sun will be setting at 5:46 pm with dusk at 6:14 pm. On that day in 2022, we had sunny, warm and temperatures between 71 and 46 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 54 degrees. We hit a record high of 76 back in 1994.

Catskills

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?? Our Public Lands ??

Interactive maps with backcountry and roadside camping: New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia & Vermont.
List of NYS DEC Lean-Tos with map coordinates. List of NYS DEC Firetowers with map coordinates and more information.
Google Spreadsheet with Roadside, Primitive and Pay Campsites

Explore the Finger Lakes Trail, Long Path, Northville-Placid Trail and Long Trail/Appalachian in Vermont.
Catskill Park Mountain Peaks, Hudson Valley & Long Island Peaks, Peaks Over 3000 ft Elevation, Highest Peaks in Adirondacks, Interactive Map of All Named Summits in NYS, Blaze Colors in Catskill Park, Trailhead Parking Coordinates and Addresses in the Catskills.

Browse USGS Topo Quads as PDF ? by State Lands or County. You can Bulk Download New & Old USGS Topograpic Maps.

Links to various NY State Land Websites ?. Get latest GIS Data from state Web Services.

⛺? Camp ??

Moose River PlainsCampsite Listing, Maps and photos of state’s largest free camping area.
Piseco-Powley RoadCampsite Listing, Maps and photos of 15 mile dirt road with camping.
Catskill Park Primitive CampsitesAn overview of free camping locations in Catskill Park.
Burnt-Rossman Forest, Cattaraugus County, East Branch Sacandaga River, Finger Lakes National Forest, Madison County, Pennsylvania, Vermont and West Virigina.

Campsite Coordinates for Bog River Flow / Lows Lake, Hudson River SMA (Buttermilk Falls), Lake Lila, Oswegathie River, Nine-Corner Lake, Pharaoh Lake Wilderness, Saranac River Campsites, Stillwater Lake, Schoharie County, and Sugar Hill State Forest.

Overview of Camping Areas in the Catskills, Green Mountains, Southern Adirondacks, Central Adirondacks, Northern Adirondacks, Allegheny National Forest and Penna. DCNR Motorized Campsites and the Monongahela National Forest West Virginia.

Free Campsite Overview Maps: Adirondack – North Country, Catskills, Central NY, Finger Lakes, Western NY. Interactive Map.

Places I camped in 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020.

? ? Bicycle Trails and “Blackie” My Mountain Bike ? ?

Finally bought a mountain bike, after chewing over a mountain vs commuter bike. Really enjoying riding my bike to work and when it rains there is always a bike rack to safely take it back home. One way to get to adventures at Thacher Park is the Nature Bus.

Empire Trail – KMZ and Interactive Map. Parking along it.

More Trailways with KMZ files including the Albany County Rail Trail, Black Diamond Trail, Catharine Valley Trail, Catskill Scenic Trail, Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville Rail Trail, Genesee Valley Trail, Link Trail.

?? Hunt ??

Wildlife Management Units (Deer)KMZ Map shows the WMU boundaries.

Summer 2019 Aerial Photographs of WMUs

KMZ Maps of Deer Harvest Density by Town: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016. By WMU 2017, 2016, 2015.

KMZ Maps of Buck Harvest Density by Town: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016. By WMU 2017, 2016

2016 -2019 Deer and Buck Harvest by TownKMZ Spreadsheet with FIPS codes for making your own calculations.

?? Fish ??

Parking and Access to Trout StreamsAn interactive, downloadable KMZ Map.
Lakes with DEC Contour MapsA KMZ Map links to Contour Maps for Fishing.

?? Sled & Wheel ?❄

State Truck Trails Over A Half MileDirt roads to explore in the backcountry.
NYS Statewide Snowmobile Trail SystemState trails on public and private lands.

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Interactive Maps of NY CensusExplore and download KML files.
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Andy Arthur GitHubGit my R and Python scripts used to make maps and diagrams.
Use ArcPullR to Get Geospatial DataSuper easy way to connect to get GIS data in R from government servers.
GDAL Opens E00 FilesMost open source programs nowadays can open common geospatial formats.
NY Building FootprintsWhere to find on the internet for making maps.
WMS and ArcMap ServicesDownloadable CSV file listing services used on the blog.
2022 US Census Population EstimatesRed states, south continue to gain population.
2020 Cartogram of State Population

? ? Property Taxes ??

Properties in Albany Pine Bush Study Area, Excel Files: Various Tax Rolls, Find coordinates and political districts, Look Up State Tax Records and a Script for Processing RPTL 1520 PDFs. Match NY SWIS Codes to FIPS Codes and GEOID. How to Find MapServer Data and Load Into QGIS.

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Good Morning – September 16, 2021

Good morning! Well we made it to Thursday. 🤷‍♂️

Sometimes the best laid plans don’t go plan especially if you intentionally sabotage them. I should have dealt with the truck issues weeks ago, but I didn’t and now it’s too late for West Virginia, although I guess I had never really seriously planned to go there this autumn. But I now am working on alternative plans, including a three or four day weekend this weekend.

Partly cloudy and 64 degrees at the Delmar, NY. 🌤 There is a north breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 60 degrees. The skies will clear around 10 am.

Yesterday, I made call to Watkins Spring and they told me they couldn’t schedule an appointment until mid-October, as their machine is down. 🔧 So it looks like am scheduled for October 14th, which was the week I was planning to go to West Virginia. I really need to get new tires on my truck, especially before such a long trip, but I waited and waited on the alignment. It was stupid on my part, but I just wasn’t sure what I really wanted to do. 📞 It was just a phone call I should have made weeks ago, but I really hate to spend the money. Not on the alignment, but all the certain to be found other broken parts and then those big 35 inch tires, which I like. Needs to get done though. I am not going to bother to order the tires until the alignment is done, because that would be silly. So I’m looking at November.

But in the mean time, I’ll probably plan some smaller weekend trips around town. 🏕 I am thinking about a four day weekend up to Piseco-Powley this weekend as it looks warm, or maybe start a few nights up at Stewart Landing to paddle and float around there in the tube, while we still have warmish weather. Then maybe another trip somewhere later in September or early October. The tires are still legal, but they are getting increasingly dry rotted, and they are cupped and loud. 🟤 I think I can get through November, but I need better tires come winter and state inspection late in November. I shouldn’t have delayed forever — but hopefully the snow will hold off until later this year, so I can plan other trips come November. If I stay in New York, I have my hunting license — maybe the Finger Lakes National Forest would be a nice spring board off to other nearby forests. I actually am a big fan of November camping.

I could still go down to West Virginia come November, but I don’t know. 🍂 I am kind of bored with it, although I still want to explore Dolly Sods more. Maybe this year in November or next. I do need to a bit careful with vacation time — I didn’t accumulate as many credited hours this year ⏲ working from home, and next year maybe quite busy. Honestly though, I don’t if I really wanted to go down there — I procrastinated and procrastinated — suggesting it wasn’t something I cared about that much. Plus money is always so god-damn tight all of the time. 💸I’m just so focused on the future, that it’s hard to justify more spending today, especially for a meaningless vacation that would be over in a week. West Virginia was fun the first few times, but now it’s kind of all the same. Some point I want to get farther south in that state, and check out the New River Gorge, but I just don’t see that happening this year. 🌉

It really is the fault of my damn anxiety 🙄 especially when it comes to all things money 💵 and repairs. 🛠 If I were to bite the bullet sooner things would be better 🙈 but it’s so easy to put off until tomorrow. I just keep thinking about the future 🔮 and the better life of tomorrow, knowing that time ⌚ and constant saving will get me there eventually.

Other than that I installed a new app on my phone 📱 to track my steps but with the rain last night I only got in around 8,000 for the day. 🚶 I was surprised that my morning walk is only about 4,000 steps. I always thought that it was more. It certainly rained hard last night.

I got watching a series of videos about programing in Qt. 🖥 Lately I’ve just become really interested in computers and how they work. I know the Qt GUI API from my years writing little plugins to automate mapping in QGIS. The C++ API and signal are slots method is almost the same as with Python which I normally use for writing plugins. I’m almost 40, I don’t care if people think I’m a computer geek 🤓 but I like being able to automate processes and learn more about computers. But still I refuse to get internet at home 📶 and I have relatively little technology besides my smartphone and my five years old laptop.

Camping Areas in Northern Adirondacks ⛺

Bog River Flow – Popular canoe area that is popular for camping and paddling. Short portage between Hitchens Pond and Lows Lake. Lows Ledge is a 1 mile hike from the portage up to a ledge with expansive views of lakes and surrounding locations. Good to no cell service depending on location.

Brasher State Forest – Roughly 10 miles south of Malone, this expansive state forest is home to the Walter Pratt Camping Area on Red River Pond. Part of Saint Lawrence Flatlands, this area is largely sandy remote country with vast pine forest. Good cell service.

Chazy Lake – There are two campsites along the end of Wildfred Kingdom Road on Chazy Lake. The end of the road to the campsites is gated, and at times the campsites are marshy, but the views from the campsites are amazing.

Deer River State Forest – The “rough” country just north of Adirondack Park in Franklin County, that has camping in a wild environment that is the transition from the Adirondacks to the Saint Lawrence Flatland, about 10 miles outside of Malone. Limited cell service.

Franklin Falls Pond – There are several tent sites along the shore of Franklin Falls Pond that are a short hike down from the road and right along a popular canoe route. No cell service.

Floodwood Road (St Regis Canoe Area) – A very popular and packed in camping area is along Floodwood Road. I camped there once, I don’t recommend it.

Lake Kushaqua – A very scenic lake with a few campsites along it’s shore, near the Buck Pond Campground. I’ve been told these sites are too good to put out on the Internet and can be very hard to get in season. This lake connects with Rainbow Lake under a culvert, however to reach the upper part of Rainbow Lake you must portage.

Horsehoe Lake – Horseshoe Lake in Franklin County, is located about 15 miles south west of Tupper Lake. There are 6 campsites along the lake, plus 4 others on roads nearby. Near the Hitchens Pond put-in for Lows Lake, a popular spot for camping and paddling. Good to no cell service depending on location.

Mountain Pond – Old routing of NY 30 north of the Paul Smith VIC. Rough asphalt road. Near Barnum Pond which is very scenic for paddling, and rather rough Slush Pond Road which offers additonal campsites. No cell service.

Jones Pond – Three campsites located along a rough dirt road along with several tent sites along the north shore of this small lake about 10 miles from Saranac Lake.

Streeter Lake – Old railroad grade with 8 roadside campsites spread out along it’s way, along with a few campsites around the lake and an lean-to.

Union Falls Pond – One drive in site and a few tent sites along the reservoir just north of Franklin Falls Pond. Great views of Whiteface Mountain from this reservoir. No cell service.