Stoney Pond Designated Dispersed Camping

This is a free 17 site DEC campground in Madison County about 10 miles from Cazenovia New York. To camp here you must have a permit from May to September and to get that permit you have to reserve a site on Reserve America. There are 15 drive up sites and two walk in sites, most sites have a fire ring and a picnic table. There is NO water spigots, electric, flush toilets, showers or a RV dump station within the park, just portable outhouses. There are no rangers or a ranger station there so I just printed off my reservation incase a Ranger came by....I did not see one the entire time I was there. The road in is very good and will hold good size RV's....but there are only about 5 sites that can hold a good size RV (20 plus feet), sites 1,10,12,13,14,15 are big enough. Most of the sites are on an incline so leveling could be difficult. I have heard that this area is used for parting but the entire time I was there none of that happened, it was quiet and enjoyable. There is a picnic area next to the pond, a boat launch, hiking trails and several bodies of water for paddling in the area. The pond is weedy so swimming is not a great idea. Gas and groceries are about 10 miles away and my Verizon service was good enough to send and receive text. The campground has no physical address so to find this place you will have to google Stoney Pond State Forest. Zoom in until you see campsite road and drop a pin. The roads to the campground are narrow but easily travelable.

We stayed two nights had people screaming at each other and speeding out in their cars. Another site was running a generator and what sounded like welding until 12 midnight.

Trash bags were thrown into the bushes in our site full of diapers and who knows what else. Ports potty were being used as trash bins.

Sad it looked this way when we were there. Would be interested in trying it again.

Came in at around 10pm mid July very spread out, porta potty’s only, very quite, nice site for small and large groups, plenty of parking, website said you have to have a permit or reservation but no one checked us and we just grabbed an open site

All around couldn’t ask for a better camp spot for no charge. Running would be nice for multiple night stays but we were on my there for a night so no problems.

Gravel road coming in. Gravel sites. 3g to 4g 2bars Verizon sometimes you only get 1x. It varies. Beautiful area. It snowed while I was here spring 2018. Very quiet other than geese. Several cars ride through during the day. I think it is a busy spot on weekends. Good roads, but muddy if raining or wet heavy snow. Sites are a nice size and spaced a good bit apart. There are fire rings at each site. No picknik tables that I saw. I had a lovely 3 nights stay here. I would definitely stay here again. I had to clean up a bit of trash from last person, so sadly not everyone takes out what they bring in. That's all they ask. You will need a permit from May 1st til sometime in September I think. This pond is in the western edge of the Adirondacks I believe.