Rudd Pond Area — Taconic State Park

Camper van off the grid. Large site with privacy, but not many campers early season New bath house with multiple shower rooms. Wonderful hiking trails. Pond for fishing & swimming. Kiddie pond, children’s playground, Deli across the street is poorly managed but OK for a sandwich. Beautiful surrounding countryside.

We stayed here in August 2020.

This is a really interesting campground that's situated on a hill overlooking Rudd Pond in Taconic State Park.  Almost all of the sites have platforms to pitch your tent on, although there are a couple of flatter spots without platforms (although they still have a slope.)

There's space near the platform that is flat-ish with a picnic and a fire pit.  Some of these are better than others, ours was not that flat, but we made it work. You get a pretty decent view of Rudd Pond, and the sunsets are pretty. There is also a trailhead at the end of the campground that connects to the other trails in Taconic State Park. There's a swimming beach and during non-covid times, boat rentals.

The campsites are pretty close together, so if the campground is full, you are rather close to your neighbors. It was close to half full when we were there, and it still felt like a fairly noisy campground, even after quiet hours. 

My one complaint in these covid times is that compared to the NY-DEC campground we stayed at, I felt that the safety measures were less adhered to here. They had signs asking people to wear masks in the bathroom building, but far fewer people were. I also didn't see the staff do any cleaning of the restrooms while we were there - the paper towels ran out at one point and I had to flag the staff down to get them to go take care of that.  

Still, I thought it was a really cute place to stay, and I think we would stay here again.

The sites were a little close together, but being able to fish and catching 2 decent-sized largemouth bass made everything all ok!! There is plenty of fishing access from shore and you can rent a boat for the whole day to fish on the water. There is a lot of hiking in the area- def check out Bash Bish Falls! This campground is also dog friendly so bring your fur babies!

There are lots of trails to explore. Many unmarked. Campsites not private at all. Felt like I was sharing my site with strangers. Trail to lake overgrown behind campsite. There is platform sites. Nice beach, playground. Seemed like a lot of campers were escaping the big city. Bash bish falls are just a short drive.