Catskill NY camping with a biblical plague theme
Written: Sep 19 '05 (Updated Sep 19 '05)
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Pros: Cute Woodstock-like town nearby, good base for tubing on Esopus Creek
Cons: Too many to list, like bears, pay showers, bug infestations, lousy facilities
The Bottom Line: We had a nightmare weekend here but I assume it isn't always this bad. I could never in good conscience recommend it based on our experiences so be warned.
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| webturtle's Full Review: Woodland Valley State Campground |
Every camper has one - the story of the camping trip that was so bad, it can't possibly get worse. This is ours, based in the Catskills of New York.
We picked Woodland Valley State Campground based on web site descriptions, despite having never been there before. I'd heard about the nearby town of Phonecia and how Woodstock-like it was, and thought a long holiday weekend (July 4th) would be nice in a place like that. Plus, we heard the fishing was great and it was a very quiet peaceful place.
When we arrived Friday, the first thing we noticed was the grasshoppers - big ones, and a lot of them, flying everywhere. It was VERY hot and I wasn't too worried about that - locusts tend to get agitated in that weather. We also noticed there were a lot of big black house flies around the administrative building but assumed there was a recycling center nearby.
When we arrived at our site, described as "shaded" we were not thrilled - it was small, dusty, and completely UNshaded - in fact, we realized we would have nowhere to even tie a tarp if we needed to. While looking for trees, we discovered that EVERY single tree in our site was loaded (I'm talking thousands) with gypsy caterpillars. You couldn't even tie something to a tree without knocking them down. And the munching... oh, my goodness! The caterpillar "feces" were falling out of the trees like rain (though not over us, since we didn't have any near enough trees). Then we noticed the fire pit was broken to pieces - nowhere to put a pot. With grasshoppers flying and caterpillars munching, I said "go check that creek down there - if its running red we're OUT OF HERE." It seemed funny at the time.
The creek was more or less dry, not running with blood. So, we set up camp, and got our tent up. No sooner than the rain fly was up, it began to POUR - non stop for a couple hours. We quickly put a tarp up on two trees at the far reach of the site, used the picnic table to anchor the other end and huddled under it in ponchos. As our rain fly began to fail and water ran down in a river across the site, we went out and began digging in the mud, til we had a canal around the tent. Too late to save the tent from a mud bath but at least what was inside was relatively dry.
When it was over, we crawled back out and made a fire - built our own rock pile structure to put a pot on and went to bed very early, exhausted.
We woke up on the ground, with rocks in our back. What happened to the air mattress? A leak!? How appropriate. The morning was beautiful, not as hot - and we started to cook breakfast. It was only as we were about mid way through that the sun came over the ridge and started baking our site again. And that is when the flies came. First one or two, then a dozen, then hundreds. I'm not kidding - the entire campground was a cloud of those big black furry nasty house flies. We put away the food that was still out and fled the campground entirely.
Phoenicia was, as promised, a very cute little town with lots of nice shops and restaurants so we spent most of the day Saturday there, wandering around. We purchased a new air mattress. We also went to the Kaleidoscope Museum which was just wonderful, if you're into those it is a feast for the eyes! Lastly, we went scouting fishing spots on the Esopus, in order to have something to do on Sunday.
As the sun began to go down, we returned to camp to await the reported man who drives around with firewood. He did arrive - sold us a big batch and after he left, we discovered it was all too green to burn. Great! So we set off to take a shower - having learned that our bathhouse next to the site was without a shower. We walked to the bathhouse with showers, split into the mens and womens room, and walked right back out - PAY SHOWERS??? If they spent half as much time talking about bears in the literature as they did useful information like that, we would have known. So back we went to find quarters so we could shower. We were not happy at this point.
We woke at the crack of dawn to find three young men running down the main road with cameras... chasing... what? A bear! Of course. Turns out that since the recycling center only is open at set periods of time, someone who was checking out tossed their garbage outside and a nice black bear was having breakfast. We just kept our garbage inside the truck at night although, coupled with the heat, I kind of understood.
Bear sighting over, we packed up and went fishing at the spot we'd found. The sun wasn't quite up and it was very pretty, and uneventful except that my fishing reel jammed permanently and we got a visit from a DEC dude (I hiked back to the car to get licenses). Oh, and we didn't get so much as a nibble. Knowing the flies were coming as the sun rose, we scrambled back to camp to make breakfast. I was moving fast - I didn't want to cook once they came. So, I was working on an omelette and just sprinkled cheese on it when I looked down and there was a big black house fly in my omelette. I flipped out - "Get that thing OUT OF MY BREAKFAST!" and my boyfriend attempted to - rolling it across the sticky cheese. ARGH! He said it wouldn't hurt anything - so I fed that half to him. And he was right - he's still here.
By the time breakfast was over, there was a cloud of flies in our site. I thought maybe we could evade them in the woods - forgetting the caterpillars. So we took what we'd been told was the "easy carriage trail" portion of the trails nearby. Yeah, right! We're not big time hikers - bad knees and asthma and all, we just love to walk. Distance, not high elevation. Well - this was unlike any carriage trail I've ever seen - it was straight and steadily uphill, over rocks and trees. Trees which you could not touch because they were completely furred with caterpillars. We made it one mile up - and said "forget this" - and went back down. Since everything was wet and slippery, it still killed a piece of the afternoon.
But not enough - the car, tent and table were so covered with flies when we returned to the site, they were black. I had had about enough, and handed my boyfriend the car keys, said "here, go to town and buy yourself some ice cream" and unzipped the tent and went in. There, fly and caterpillar free, I read for a while, and took a lovely nap on the new air mattress. Ahh!
I came out when the sun was setting and the flies were gone. And finally, we had a lovely evening with a smokey campfire, marshmallows and a couple beers. The only issue that evening - our downstate NYC neighbors who put their car alarm on and then left the campground. At that point, you have to just shake your head with disbelief! Other than that, we didn't see a whole lot of people - it didn't seem to be a family place, probably because there weren't facilities for children. And definitely more suited for roughin' it tenters than RVs, although we saw a mix of both on our walk around.
We decided Sunday night that we'd had just about enough "fun" for one weekend so we started packing. When the sun rose Monday morning, July 4th, we only had to take down the tent and GO. By 9 a.m. we were on the road, seeking breakfast, and the check out gal said there was a diner outside of town that was awesome. It was indeed - we ate outside on the porch with some other travelers and everything was delicious. But when I went in to pay she said "cash only" and I'd just run out (I had $4 on me) and they didn't have any credit card terminals "up there." So, back into Phoenicia we went - totally in the wrong direction - leaving my credit card as collateral. I had tried so hard to avoid that RV Camper crush that is a small tourist town on check out day - and here we were. Joy! So, I finally found an ATM, got cash, went back, checked out and we FLEW out of there.
Recommended:
No
Best Suited For: Singles
Best Time to Travel Here: Sep - Nov
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Epinions.com ID:
webturtle
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Reviews written: 29
Trusted by: 5 members
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