Best Tent Camping near Witherbee, NY

Campground Review: Lakeshore camping! Beautiful little peninsula where you can watch the sunrise/set. Lovely in autumn. Good birding, water activities, sunsets, geology/gorge, short easy forest hikes, beach walking, all the good stuff you expect from this part of New York. Most of the site is off limits because of wildlife preserve, still a lot to explore. Good as base camp for a few days in the area. Get the tents sites near the lake! Popular for day use area (picnics, birthday parties, etc). Stay here and you can say you camped in Peru! (Lots of upstate NY towns are named for countries.)

Gear Review: As a The Dyrt Ranger I receive products to test and review. I won the Crazy Creek Air Chair Plus in a campground review contest in June 2016. I had been thinking of purchasing both a camp chair (for camping) and an air mattress (for camping & backpacking), as on my last few trips I got pretty sick of sitting on my closed-cell foam mat and a recent knee injury was making me rethink my open-cell foam ultralight sleeping pad. Well, this Crazy Creek Air Chair Plus does both and does them both well. It starts out as a camp chair (adjustable angle, typical back height) and flips open to a full size air pad made by Klymit. Sounds great right? I flew to NY for a whirlwind family/business/camping trip soon after receiving the chair and had ample opportunities to try it sleeping on friends’ floors and in tents. The chair portion was super comfortable, way better than any simple camp chairs I’d used. I was nervous about sitting on more rugged surfaces (I’m just paranoid about inflatables!) but so far so good. You can also flip open the bed part while you're sitting and have an extended leg rest to protect against hot sand or dirt. The conversion to the sleeping pad was simple. It inflates fairly easily, but at high altitude after a long day of hiking you might be a little annoyed puffing it all up. Sleeping on it was great: my knee and back were happier than with my open-cell foam mats (similar to the typical Thermarest). The one issue I had was that there’s a big dip/joint where the mattress flips out in the conversion from chair to bed---it’s not really that intrusive but I guess my side-sleeping and height (5’4”) conspired to annoy me a bit. Also the R value is very low (it’s not insulting) just like every other air pad but in the summer that’s fine with me. All the other aspects of sleeping on it were similar to other pads I’ve used (it’s kind of narrow, your bag will slide around a bit, etc). Doesn’t pack down too small & isn’t ultralight, but you could remove the chair aspect to help with that. In sleeping mode it’s 20” wide, 70” long, 2.5” thick, 2 lb 13 oz (according to packaging). So while this is my very first camp chair and air mattress, I’m really happy with it after 7 nights sleeping on it and many hours in the chair. It’s not gimmicky at all!

PS: Can you tell I’m way more picky about gear than campsites? :)

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at North Beach Campground.

We spent 4 days in a full hookup site. The site was spacious, tree covered, and hard packed grass/dirt. Overall the site was very level with good water pressure. The water/electric sites in the middle of the campground were a bit snug. The campground is a city operated campground and we were impressed with the upkeep, maintenance and friendly service during our stay. The camp office is small, but has information on area attractions, Ice, and fire wood. The bathhouse/restrooms were well kept during our stay even with the volume of campers at the site.

Location, Location, Location is the main reason to stay at North Beach. The campground is literally along the Island Line bike/walking trail and had direct access to the beach on Lake Champlain (life guards, snack bar, and patio bar). The city center of Burlington is only 1.5 miles along the bike path from the campground. Most days we either walked or biked into town (which has ample bike racks to park your bike).

While we stayed in our camper, as a former die-hard tent camper, I was impressed with the number of tent friendly sites, because most campgrounds see tenters as “second class”. The tent sites were spacious, level, and not located in some obscure location.  

We loved North Beach and plan to camp here in the future!

Note: This is a hike in back country shelter with unreliable water and a pit bathroom.

I tented here on a section hike of the AT. The shelter was a fairly basic 8ish person shelter, but this stop stood out because of a brand new privvy, large tenting areas, and a swimming hole and consistent water just a bit further down the trail (when heading northbound).

For camping, there were a few large tent areas where multiple tents could fit and which looked quite level.

The privvy looked brand new and was more spacious than most on the trail.

There was no water on the shelter, but there was plenty of water at Stony Brook / Mink Brook a bit further northbound. I only explored a bit offtrail down the brook but found a decent swimming hole (could just barely submerge myself) to clean off a bit.

There was also a bear box here, which I hadn't seen at other shelters along the AT in Vermont (heading southbound).

Although the shelter was fairly basic, I would keep this on my list as a go-to place to stop if I was planning to hike in the area.

This is a short and sweet hike to one of the higher points in Vermont. It is a beautiful scenic (somewhat strenuous) hike to the summit. The views are pretty epic though. The designated primitive camping area is about 1.5 miles into the hike. If I recall it had about 10-12 sites. The area had a host who was there 24/7 and a shared area for eating and food storage (I guess Bear’s are a problem there). We hiked all day, so we didn’t have a fire and to be honest I can’t remember if there was a shared spot for them or not. Either way, this hike was gorgeous and so was the camping. I would love to go back!

I tent camped here before doing a section hike of the Appalachian Trail and it was one of the best campgrounds I’ve stayed at before.

The sites have some privacy and woods in between, though the tent sites vs. shelters and cabins were mostly closer to the access road. All sites were super clean and had a picnic table and fire ring. Most sites had a built in cooking fire structure (vs. a fire ring) they looked great for camp cooking, though my site (T01) seemed to be the only without it.

The facilities were well-maintained, there were water spigots everywhere, and though I didn’t get a chance to enjoy, there were lots of activities right there (volleyball lawn, the AT running right through the campground, mountain bike trails).

I didn’t stay in them, but the cabins and lean-tos looked great for group or family options.

Kent Pond was also just across the road for water activities, and I saw at least one fly fisher out.

Killington was also right nearby for restaurants and other needs.

I will definitely be coming back to explore more!

Tucked down a gravel road in the Green Mountain National Forest is this hidden treasure. Large sites, friendly campground host, the moosalamoo trailhead right next to campground. The trail connects to many others. You will pass several trailheads on your way up to the campground. Many of the sites are reservable, others are first come first serve. You will find a pay station as you enter the campsite. The camp host is at site 1. Surprisingly clean vault toilets. No showers. There are dumpsters on the way out for trash and recycling. I saw bear storage lockers but I did not use them as I had my bear keg with me. Behind the parking spur at the site there is gravel with picnic table and fire pit. Beyond that in the trees was a spot for the tent. I didn’t experience many bugs, no mosquitoes, what I saw the most of were caterpillars. But If you needed bug spray or forgot anything back in town a few miles Ripton grocery has you covered.

We travel in a 17-foot camper van, but no one ever believes that we are no bigger than a standard cargo van and can easily fit in a regular size parking space. Upon arrival at Ausable Chasm, we were told we had to take a site with water and electric since we had a camper van. These sites were $13 more per night and we really did not need the hookups. We were finally able to convince the staff that we could take a standard tent site, which was more than big enough. 

The road through the campground is dirt and rutted but the speed limit is 5 mph, so it wasn’t that bad, but it would be a mess if it was raining. 

Bathrooms and shower rooms are individual rooms, but the doors are not labeled so it’s a game of “what’s behind door number 1?”  There was no light in the shower room that I looked at so a night shower would be out of the question. The bathrooms were clean and had soap, paper towels, a garbage receptacle, and a mirror in each. 

Lots of ant hills throughout the campground so be cautious where you set up a tent. Each site has a picnic table and a fire ring. Large and nice-looking playground, pool, volleyball net, disc golf and mountain biking/hiking trails. It also looked like there were cross country ski trails but not sure if the campground or cabins would be open in the winter. 

Biggest advantage is that Ausable Chasm(a separate business) is directly across the street from the campground and it is very close to the ferry that will take you to Burlington, VT, our next destination.