Overlanding

New York

Why New York is a short list of legal roads inside an enormous park

New York holds the largest protected area in the contiguous United States and almost none of it is federal. The Congressional Research Service counts 210,819 federal acres here, 0.7 percent of the state, with no Bureau of Land Management ground at all. The Adirondack Park alone covers about six million acres, which the Adirondack Park Agency notes is larger than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier and Grand Canyon put together.

The catch is constitutional. Article XIV of the state constitution says the Forest Preserve “shall be forever kept as wild forest lands”, and the Department of Environmental Conservation reads that as a bar on building or widening roads. Its own policy says Forest Preserve roads “should continue to have narrow driving surfaces, be surfaced with gravel, be suitable for low speeds only, and be shaded by tree canopy”. In Wilderness and Canoe areas there is no road work at all, and in Canoe areas the use of roads is prohibited outright.

So what you can drive is a published list rather than a general permission, and the list has been frozen since 1972. The Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan says there will be no material increase in the mileage of roads open to motorized use in wild forest areas beyond what conformed in 1972; the Catskill plan says the same from 1985. Ferris Lake Wild Forest, 147,454 acres, has 10.95 miles of road open to the public. That ratio is the state in one line.

Read it that way and New York is rewarding rather than disappointing. The Moose River Plains road runs 23 miles between two gates with 116 roadside campsites along it and its spurs. The Perkins Clearing and Speculator Tree Farm easements put a dirt road system and drive-up sites on 35,980 acres of working private forest. The state runs 51 campgrounds inside the two parks. Learn which gate opens when, and you have a season.

New York by the numbers

of New York is federal land 1: 0.7%; 210,819 of 30,680,960 acres, and none of it BLM
acres inside the Adirondack Park 11: 6M; The largest protected region in the contiguous United States, 44 percent of it state owned
acres of Forest Preserve, forever wild 9: 3M; 61 percent of all the land the state conservation department manages
Mount Marcy, the state high point 2: 5,344 ft; Our own reading of the elevation surface at its map point gives 5,333 ft
state campgrounds in the two parks 15: 51; Booked through ReserveAmerica up to nine months ahead
federal campgrounds a vehicle can reach 4: 9; 6 Park Service and 3 Forest Service; our build of the federal recreation database
acres of State Forest outside the two parks 14: 800K+; Where the motor vehicle rules are looser than in the Forest Preserve
acres of conservation easement open to the public 16: 900K+; Working private forest; access can be suspended while logging is under way

Article XIV, and what it means at a gate

The Forest Preserve is governed by a sentence in the state constitution: the lands “shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.” The conservation department’s road policy CP-38 says all road work in the Preserve must be consistent with that provision, and the courts have read it strictly since Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks v. MacDonald in 1930.

In practice the classification on the map decides everything. There is no maintenance, rehabilitation, relocation, widening or new construction of roads or state truck trails in Wilderness areas. In areas classified as Canoe, the use of roads is prohibited. Wild Forest is where public driving happens, and even there no new road may be built unless Article XIV allows it and it does not materially increase the mileage open to the public.

The Adirondack plan classifies about 1.3 million acres as wild forest, roughly 51 percent of the Preserve inside the Park, across 27 areas. The Catskill plan classifies over 130,000 acres as wild forest across fourteen units, about 47 percent of the Preserve there. Those are the places to look for a road. The Adirondack plan also warns that its own acreage and mileage figures “are not the product of actual surveys and may vary when compared to data from other sources”, which is worth remembering before treating any of them as precise.

Source 5

The roads that are open, unit by unit

Nobody publishes a statewide total of Forest Preserve road miles open to the public, so the honest way to describe it is one unit at a time. Ferris Lake Wild Forest, 147,454 acres, has 10.95 miles of road open to the public and 97 designated primitive campsites, with roadside camping along Powley-Piseco, Edick, Jerseyfield, Stewart Landing, G Lake and Mountain Home Road Extension.

The Moose River Plains Complex is the one most people mean. Its Limekiln Lake-Cedar River Road runs 23 miles between the Limekiln gate near Inlet and the Wakely Dam gate at the end of Cedar River Road near Indian Lake, with 116 primitive roadside campsites along it, Otter Brook Road, Rock Dam Road and their spurs. Black River Wild Forest, 127,135 acres, keeps seasonal access roads open to vehicles with ATVs prohibited, and names Wolf Lake Landing, Mill Creek, South Shore and Haskell as the popular ones.

Independence River Wild Forest is the warning. Its own page says Big Otter Lake Road “is wet, muddy and rough; it is not suitable for use by most passenger vehicles”, and the department does not plow seasonal access roads in winter, though Number Four, Stillwater, Necessary Dam, Big Moose, Sand Pond and Partridgeville roads are plowed by their municipalities. Stillwater Reservoir carries 46 primitive campsites on its shores and islands.

Source 17

Working forest, where the rules are different

Outside the two parks the state manages more than 800,000 acres of State Forest, which the department says are found throughout New York except inside the Adirondack and Catskill Parks. They came from the 1929 State Reforestation Act and the 1931 Hewitt Amendment, and the motor vehicle rules there are not as stringent as in the Forest Preserve.

Then there are the easements: more than 900,000 acres of conservation easement land, over 800,000 of it working forest, which the department says provides public access to hundreds of thousands of acres of private land. The Perkins Clearing Tract, 14,330 acres west of Route 30, and the Speculator Tree Farm Tract, 21,650 acres east of it, carry a system of dirt roads with public motor vehicle access and designated drive-up campsites along Perkins Clearing, Jessup River, Fly Creek and Robbs Creek roads, where small trailered campers are allowed.

The catch on easement land is the one the department states plainly: public access may be suspended or relocated when forest management activities are under way. Interior roads on the Perkins and Speculator tracts close to motor vehicles each winter and reopen after the spring mud season.

Source 16

Seasons, and the two that actually close roads

Mud season is the real gate. Black River Wild Forest closes its roads to vehicles during the spring mud season, and the Perkins and Speculator easement roads reopen only after it. Nothing here publishes fixed dates for it, so the unit page is the thing to read the week before you go.

Winter closes the rest. Seasonal access roads are not plowed, and some are designated snowmobile trails instead: Buttermilk Road and Gay Pond Road in the Lake George Wild Forest are unplowed and used that way. The state snowmobile trail system runs to more than 10,500 miles of corridor trail, administered by the parks office rather than the conservation department, and snowmobiles are restricted to marked trails on Forest Preserve land.

The paid roads have published seasons. The Prospect Mountain highway runs from 23 May to 11 November. Montezuma’s wildlife drive opens 1 April, weather permitting, and closes 30 November. Developed campgrounds on the Finger Lakes National Forest are usually open from Memorial Day through Columbus Day.

Source 19

One national forest, and it is the second smallest in the country

New York has a single national forest and it is a curiosity. The Finger Lakes National Forest is about 16,000 acres on the ridge between Seneca and Cayuga lakes, which the Forest Service calls the second smallest in the National Forest System, and a large proportion of its grassland is still maintained by grazing under agreement rather than left to grow back. A western driver arriving with western habits will find it is smaller than a single Adirondack wild forest unit.

Its camping rules are its own and they are not the state’s. Sites go at least 50 feet from trails, roads, developed recreation sites and water, the maximum stay is 14 days in any 30, and camping is prohibited in the pastures from 15 May to 31 October, which is most of the season. Blueberry Patch has nine sites at fifteen dollars, Backbone Horse Campground eleven at the same, and the Potomac group site takes 8 to 40 people at twenty to forty. Developed campgrounds are usually open from Memorial Day through Columbus Day.

Source 31

The two parks, and the scale nobody expects

The Adirondack Park boundary encloses approximately six million acres, which the Park Agency calls the largest publicly protected area in the contiguous United States, greater than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier and Grand Canyon combined. The state owns roughly 44 percent of it, about 2.6 million acres by the Agency’s count, and the rest is private land devoted principally to forestry, agriculture and open space. About 123,000 people live inside the line year round, in 101 towns and villages. The conservation department’s Forest Preserve page gives 2.7 million acres for the Adirondack share, and both figures are published by the state.

The numbers that matter to a driver are the ones about water and trail rather than acreage. The Adirondacks hold more than 3,400 lakes and ponds and approximately 856 miles of wild and scenic rivers, with nearly 2,000 miles of trail across the Preserve. The department operates 51 campgrounds in the two parks by its camping page’s statewide count, 47 of them in the Adirondack Park by the Adirondacks page’s own.

The Catskill Park is the other half of the story and a quarter of the size: 1,102 square miles, or 705,500 acres, of which 287,500 acres are public Forest Preserve, about 41 percent, with a further 6,700 acres of detached preserve outside the line. It is closer to the city, busier at the trailhead, and its wild forest units are fewer and smaller. That is where the permits and the designated-site rules start appearing.

Source 10

The coast, and the water the Corps keeps

The coast is federal in two places and drivable in almost none of it. Fire Island National Seashore holds the 1,381-acre Otis Pike High Dune Wilderness, the only federally designated wilderness in the state, and its motor vehicle use is confined to designated areas under permits issued only to year-round island residents and to contractors, with a fifty dollar application fee and deadlines in December and January. Gateway National Recreation Area runs the one federal campground within reach of the city, Camp Gateway at Sandy Hook across the harbour in New Jersey, open May to September, booked through Recreation.gov, and unable to take an RV of any size.

The Corps of Engineers holds five projects in New York: the Allegheny Reservoir, Almond Lake and Mount Morris Dam in the Buffalo District, and East Sidney Lake and Whitney Point in the New York District. No Corps campground appears in our build of the federal recreation database for this state, so the Corps is water and dam recreation here rather than a place to sleep.

Source 37

Passes and routes

Limekiln Lake-Cedar River Road, Moose River Plains

23 miles

Limekiln gate near Inlet to the Wakely Dam gate near Indian Lake

The seasonal road through the 79,487-acre Moose River Plains Complex, which the department describes as extending 23 miles between the two gates. There are 116 primitive roadside campsites along this road, Otter Brook Road, Rock Dam Road and short spurs off them. A camping permit is required for groups of ten or more, or for stays of more than three nights in one place. 17

Season
Seasonal access road, gated at both ends
Powley-Piseco Road, Ferris Lake Wild Forest

One of the roads carrying the 10.95 miles open to the public inside a 147,454-acre wild forest, with roadside camping among the area’s 97 designated primitive sites. The department names Edick, Jerseyfield, Stewart Landing, G Lake and Mountain Home Road Extension alongside it. 18
Wolf Lake Landing Road, Black River Wild Forest

Seasonal access roads in this 127,135-acre wild forest provide motor vehicle access with ATVs prohibited, and the department names Wolf Lake Landing, Mill Creek, South Shore and Haskell or West Creek as the most popular. Nine designated tent sites sit along Wolf Lake Landing Road, three along Mill Creek and four along Haskell and West Creek. A camping permit must be obtained from the local forest ranger. 19

Vehicle
ATVs prohibited

Season
Closed during the spring mud season
Big Otter Lake Road, Independence River Wild Forest

The bluntest warning on any New York unit page: wet, muddy and rough, and not suitable for use by most passenger vehicles. The wild forest covers 78,600 acres on the western boundary of the Park. Seasonal access roads here are not plowed in winter and some are designated snowmobile trails, although Number Four, Stillwater, Necessary Dam, Big Moose, Sand Pond and Partridgeville roads are plowed by their municipalities. 20

Vehicle
The department says it is not suitable for most passenger vehicles
Floodwood Road, Saranac Lakes Wild Forest

The roadside camping in this 75,000-acre wild forest is mostly along Floodwood Road and at Little Green Pond. Worth knowing before launching anything: Lake Colby carries a 10 horsepower motor restriction. 21
Perkins Clearing and Jessup River roads

A system of dirt roads gives public motor vehicle access across two conservation easement tracts, the 14,330-acre Perkins Clearing Tract west of Route 30 and the 21,650-acre Speculator Tree Farm Tract east of it. Designated campsites sit along Perkins Clearing Road, Jessup River Road, Fly Creek Road and Robbs Creek Road, and small trailered campers may use the roadside sites. Interior roads close to vehicles each winter and reopen after the spring mud season. 24
Peekamoose Road, Sundown Wild ForestPaved

County Route 42 through the 30,100-acre Sundown Wild Forest, where the Rondout Creek drops through a series of waterfalls below Samson, Van Wyck and Peekamoose mountains. Camping in the Peekamoose Valley is restricted to reserved, designated sites marked with the yellow camping symbol, with twelve designated sites in the Lower Field. A ten dollar permit is required for the whole riparian corridor between 15 May and 15 September, booked in advance through ReserveAmerica, and roadside parking is a tow-away zone. 26
Prospect Mountain Veterans Memorial HighwayPaved

2,030 ft 5.5 miles

A two-lane highway to parking at three vistas, The Narrows, Lake George and the Eagle’s Nest, below the 2,030-foot summit the department names. Ten dollars a car, five a motorcycle. Our own reading of the elevation surface at the summit point gives 2,025 ft. 27

Season
23 May to 11 November
Whiteface Mountain Veterans’ Memorial HighwayPaved

8 miles

The state describes an eight-mile scenic highway up Whiteface, operated by the Olympic Regional Development Authority rather than by the conservation department. Summaries of the authority’s own site describe five miles from the toll house, but that page would not open here, so only the state’s own figure is given. Tolls and hours change by season and none is stated. 42
Buttermilk Road and Gay Pond Road, Lake George Wild Forest

2.1 miles and 3.8 miles

Two short roads in the Hudson River Special Management Area of a 72,508-acre unit in the southeastern Adirondack Park, which carries 63 designated primitive tent sites and eight lean-tos. Bear Slide Road in the same unit is gated, and the department states that beyond the gate it is open to motor vehicles only to holders of a permit under the Motorized Access Program for People with Disabilities. 22

Season
Unplowed in winter and used as snowmobile trails
County Route 18 to North-South Lake

2 miles from Haines Falls

The approach to what the department calls the biggest and most popular state campground in the Catskill Forest Preserve. Take the first right in Haines Falls onto County Route 18 and the entrance is two miles on, at the end of the road. It is a campground drive rather than a backcountry road, and in the Catskills that distinction is most of the map. 28
Picnic Area Road, Finger Lakes National Forest

County Route 2 through the forest, which is where Blueberry Patch Campground sits: nine sites at fifteen dollars a night, payable at the self-pay station as you drive in, each with a fire pit, a tent pad, a picnic table and parking for up to two cars. There is no booking and no host, which makes it the closest thing in New York to arriving and simply stopping. 33
Gulf Brook Road, Boreas Ponds Tract

The way into a tract split between two classifications: 9,118 acres in the Vanderwhacker Mountain Wild Forest and 11,412 in the High Peaks Wilderness, which is what governs how far a vehicle goes. The department publishes 6.7 miles of roadway open to bicycling from Blue Ridge Road to the Boreas Ponds parking area, mostly on Gulf Brook Road, and publishes no motor vehicle mileage, so none is stated here. Backcountry camping is allowed throughout provided sites are more than 150 feet from any roadway or water. 23

Season
Gated seasonally; the tract page is the thing to read before going
Adirondack Trail scenic bywayPaved

188 miles

Fonda and Malone

The longest of the state-designated byways crossing the Park, north to south. New York carries four byways with federal designation, the Lakes to Locks Passage as an All American Road and the Mohawk Towpath, Great Lakes Seaway Trail and Palisades as National Scenic Byways, with around twenty-six more designated by the state. 43
Central Adirondack Trail scenic bywayPaved

140 miles

Glens Falls and Rome

The east to west paved crossing of the southern Park, and the approach most people use to reach Old Forge and the western gates. 44
Olympic Trail scenic bywayPaved

170 miles

Sackets Harbor and Keeseville

The northern crossing, from Lake Ontario to the eastern edge of the Park. 45
Montezuma Wildlife Drive

3 miles

An auto tour route through a refuge of about 10,000 acres at the north end of Cayuga Lake, in Seneca, Wayne and Cayuga counties. 36

Season
1 April, weather permitting, to 30 November
Democrat Point and the Long Island beach permit

The state parks beach fishing permit allows four-wheel-drive access to designated beaches at Robert Moses, Gilgo, Hither Hills, Montauk Point and Napeague, for fishing only. Hither Hills, Montauk Point and Napeague are open around the year; Democrat Point runs 1 April to 31 December. Eighty dollars for a resident, one hundred and twenty-five otherwise. 40

Vehicle
Four-wheel drive, tyres no larger than 35 by 12.5 inches, aired down before the checkpoint

Season
Permits are not issued between 1 April and Labor Day

Rules worth knowing

Forever wild is a road rule, not a slogan: Article XIV of the state constitution keeps the Forest Preserve “forever kept as wild forest lands”, and the conservation department’s road policy applies that directly to roads: their character is not to be changed, and they stay narrow, gravel and slow. There is no maintenance, relocation, widening or new construction of roads or state truck trails in Wilderness areas, and in areas classified as Canoe the use of roads is prohibited. Wild Forest and Intensive Use are where public driving happens. 5
Drive only on roads posted as open: The department’s rules for state forests and the Forest Preserve say motorized vehicles are permitted only on access roads posted as open to motor vehicles, and that off-road use is prohibited except where specifically permitted by signs, posted notice or permit. The access policy puts it the same way: motor vehicle use is prohibited on trails and in areas, limited to designated and specifically marked roads on land classified as Wild Forest and Intensive Use, and prohibited on all land classified as Wilderness, Canoe and Primitive. 13
Camping: 150 feet, three nights, ten people: Camping is prohibited within 150 feet of any road, trail or body of water except at camping areas designated by the department. Camping for more than three consecutive nights, or in a group of ten or more, requires a permit from a forest ranger. Groups of more than twenty people, and activities such as weddings, filming and research, need a temporary revocable permit. Backcountry camping is otherwise permitted on most department land, including the Forest Preserve and the state forests. 13
An ATV is a width and weight test, and a plated truck is not one: New York defines an all-terrain vehicle as a self-propelled vehicle no wider than 70 inches and weighing no more than 1,000 pounds, manufactured primarily for off-highway use. A plated full-size truck or van meets neither limit, so the ATV registration and the ATV trail rules do not apply to it. That is our reading of the state’s own sentence rather than a quotation. What does apply is the department’s flat statement that public access by ATV is not a permitted public use on Forest Preserve land, and the motor vehicle law that an ATV may not travel on a road unless it has been specifically marked for it. 38
The beach permit carries an equipment list: The Long Island four-wheel-drive beach fishing permit costs eighty dollars for a state resident and one hundred and twenty-five otherwise, and it is for fishing only. Every vehicle must carry a shovel, rope or tow chain, portable toilet, jack and jack board, a full-size spare and a tyre gauge reading down to 5 psi, on approved tyres no larger than 35 by 12.5 inches, aired down to half the maximum rated pressure before the checkpoint. Every occupant over twelve must hold a rod, reel, line, bait and hooks or lures. Ten miles an hour, no fires, no camping, no generators, and no more than 48 consecutive hours before leaving for 48. Permits are not issued between 1 April and Labor Day. 40
Fire: a fixed spring prohibition, not a stage ladder: New York runs a statewide residential brush burning prohibition from 16 March to 14 May rather than a stage system, because open burning of debris is the single largest cause of spring wildfires in the state. Backyard fire pits and campfires under three feet high and four feet across are allowed during it, as are small cooking fires. A first offence carries a minimum five hundred dollar fine. 29
No chain law, but a studded tyre window: New York publishes no traction or chain standard. What it does publish is a season: tyres with metal studs may be used only from 16 October through 30 April. The state driver’s manual also warns against combining radial and non-radial tyres on the same vehicle, and that bridges, ramps and overpasses freeze first. 39
Easement access can be suspended without notice: More than 900,000 acres of conservation easement land is open to the public, over 800,000 of it working forest. The department is explicit that public access may be suspended or relocated when forest management activities are under way. These are private lands the public may use, not public lands, and a logging operation outranks a trip plan. 16
A wild forest may not gain a mile of road: The Adirondack master plan’s wild forest guideline is a ceiling, not a target: public use of motor vehicles will not be encouraged, and there will be no material increase in the mileage of roads and snowmobile trails open to motorised use beyond what conformed to the plan when it was adopted in 1972. Travel by jeep or other motor vehicle is permitted on a limited and regulated basis that does not materially increase motorised use or adversely affect the essentially wild character of the land. Park-wide the plan counts 1,186,865 acres of wilderness and 38,222 acres of primitive land carrying 7.85 miles of public road between them. 6
There is a permit route for a driver who cannot walk the last stretch: The department issues temporary revocable permits for motor vehicle access under the Motorized Access Program for People with Disabilities, and states the qualification in plain terms, including someone who cannot walk two hundred feet without stopping to rest. A holder may operate a suitable type of vehicle, named in the permit, on the roads, trails and areas the department designates. The constitutional limit still applies: no permit may diminish the forever wild character of Forest Preserve land, so use stays off trails, is limited to designated marked roads in Wild Forest and Intensive Use areas, and is prohibited on Wilderness, Canoe and Primitive land. 8
Snowmobiles are a separate network with a different landlord: The state snowmobile trail system runs to more than 10,500 miles of corridor trail and is administered by the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation rather than by the conservation department. Any snowmobile operated in New York must be registered with the state Department of Motor Vehicles, even one already registered in another state or province, and on Forest Preserve land snowmobiles are restricted to marked trails. Several seasonal roads become those trails in winter, which is why a road that carried a truck in September is closed to one in January. 30
The Catskills run on designated sites and a ten dollar permit: Sundown Wild Forest covers 30,100 acres of the southeast Catskills, and along Peekamoose Road, County Route 42, camping is restricted to reserved sites marked with the yellow camping symbol, with the Lower Field limited to twelve of them. A ten dollar permit is required for use of the entire Peekamoose Valley Riparian Corridor. This is the pattern in the southern Catskills generally: the closer a place is to the city, the more likely the permission is a booking rather than a right. 25
Eight campgrounds carry the Catskills: The Catskill Park holds more than a quarter million acres of forest and over 300 miles of trail, and eight state-operated campgrounds provide more than 700 individual sites between them. That is the whole developed supply on a weekend when the city empties north, and it books out first. Backcountry camping remains permitted on most land the department manages, including Forest Preserve in both parks and the State Forests outside them, which is the release valve when the campgrounds are full. 12
On the national forest, camping has its own setbacks: The Finger Lakes National Forest is not Forest Preserve and its rules are the Forest Service’s: campsites at least 50 feet from trails, roads, developed recreation sites or water bodies, a maximum stay of 14 days in any 30-day period, and no camping in the pastures from 15 May to 31 October while the grazing season runs. The state’s 150-foot setback and three-night limit do not apply here, and neither do the forest’s rules anywhere else in New York. 32
Driving Fire Island is a residents’ permit, not a visitor’s: Motorised off-road vehicle use at Fire Island National Seashore is designated within limited Park Service areas, and only year-round residents and island contractors or businesses may apply. The seashore defines a year-round resident as someone legally domiciled on the island who physically resides there continuously except for brief and occasional absences for twelve months of the year. Summer residents and renters are excluded outright. Permits are limited in number by category, the application fee is fifty dollars, resident applications are postmarked by 31 January and contractors by 1 December, and driving is progressively restricted as ferry service increases through the spring. 34
The state parks are a third system, with their own gates: Forest Preserve land, conservation easement land and the state parks are three different permissions, and the park system is the one most likely to look familiar and behave differently. Allegany State Park alone is 65,000 acres, the largest in New York, and its camping, its gates and its fees are run by the parks office rather than by the conservation department. Read the park’s own page rather than assuming the Forest Preserve rules carry across. 41
The federal campground near the city takes no RV: Camp Gateway at Sandy Hook is open May to September and every reservation goes through Recreation.gov. Sites for up to six people are thirty dollars a night, fifteen with a Senior or Access pass, sites for up to ten are fifty, and group sites for ten to thirty are a hundred and fifty. The Park Service states plainly that Sandy Hook cannot accommodate RVs, which rules out most of what this guide is written for. 35

How high is New York?

From Patchogue at 21 feet to Mount Marcy at 5,344. Altitude decides what your engine, your brakes and your lungs have to work with, and how late in the year the passes open.

Towns

Tannersville The Kaaterskill and North-South Lake approach 1,901 ft
Lake Placid Services and fuel before the Whiteface highway and the High Peaks 1,795 ft
Indian Lake The eastern gate of the Moose River Plains road, by way of Cedar River Road 1,747 ft
Old Forge The western gateway, and the road in to the Moose River Plains by way of Inlet 1,740 ft
Long Lake Mid-Park fuel on Route 30, between the Perkins tracts and the north 1,674 ft
Tupper Lake Last full services heading west across the Park 1,592 ft
Newcomb The Blue Ridge Road approach to the Boreas Ponds tract 1,559 ft
Saranac Lake The largest village in the north-central Park, and the Floodwood Road approach 1,544 ft
Cranberry Lake Remote northwest Park, near the Five Ponds country 1,495 ft
Salamanca The gateway to Allegany State Park, the largest in the state system 1,379 ft
North Creek Upper Hudson services on the Park’s eastern edge 1,033 ft
Phoenicia Central Catskills services below Stony Clove Notch 826 ft
Watkins Glen The town for the Finger Lakes National Forest, the only one in the state 459 ft
Lake George The Prospect Mountain highway and the Lake George Wild Forest roads 352 ft
Montauk The eastern end of the beach fishing permit, open around the year 31 ft
Patchogue The mainland side of Fire Island, where the ferries leave 21 ft

Passes, high roads and summits

Mount Marcy The state high point, in Essex County. The published USGS figure; our own reading of the elevation surface at its map point gives 5,333 ft 5,344 ft
Whiteface Mountain Our own reading of the elevation surface at its map point. No agency publishes a summit figure on a page that opened 4,858 ft
Slide Mountain The highest of the Catskills. The Catskill master plan gives 4,180 ft and our own reading agrees exactly 4,180 ft
Hunter Mountain Our own reading of the elevation surface at its map point, in Greene County 4,030 ft
Blue Mountain Our own reading of the elevation surface at its map point, in Hamilton County 3,760 ft
Indian Pass Our own reading of the elevation surface at its map point, in the High Peaks 2,852 ft
Stony Clove Notch Our own reading of the elevation surface at its map point, on the Catskill road between Phoenicia and Hunter 2,103 ft
Prospect Mountain Prospect Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway 2,030 ft

Pass, road and summit elevations are the figures published by the agency that manages them. Town elevations are the town’s or county’s own figure where it publishes an exact one; the rest are from the U.S. Geological Survey (3D Elevation Program at the place’s official coordinates), retrieved September 18, 2026. Every source is listed at the foot of the page.

Sources for this page

Congressional Research Service. Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data (R42346), Tables 1 and 2, data as of September 30, 2024. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
U.S. Geological Survey. Elevations and Distances in the United States, online edition. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
U.S. Geological Survey. Geographic Names Information System and 3D Elevation Program point query. Elevation of the 3DEP surface at the GNIS coordinates of the named place, rounded to the nearest foot. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
Recreation.gov. Recreation Information Database (RIDB) full export, the site’s own build of it. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. CP-38, Forest Preserve Roads, issued March 31, 2006. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
Adirondack Park Agency. Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, November 2025. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Catskill Park State Land Master Plan, August 2008. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Motorized Access Program for People with Disabilities: policy. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. New York’s Forest Preserve. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Welcome to the Adirondacks. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
Adirondack Park Agency. About the Adirondack Park. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Welcome to the Catskills. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Rules for Using State Forests and Forest Preserve. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. State Forests. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Camping, and Camping Reservations. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Conservation Easements. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Moose River Plains Complex. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Ferris Lake Wild Forest. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Black River Wild Forest. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Independence River Wild Forest. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Saranac Lakes Wild Forest. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Lake George Wild Forest. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Boreas Ponds Tract. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Perkins Clearing and Speculator Tree Farm Conservation Easement Tracts. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Sundown Wild Forest. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Peekamoose Blue Hole. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Prospect Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway Day Use Area. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. North-South Lake Campground and Day Use Area. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Open Burning, and the March 2026 reminder that the statewide residential brush burning prohibition runs March 16 to May 14. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Snowmobiling. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
USDA Forest Service. Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests: About the Area. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
USDA Forest Service. Camping and Cabins, Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
USDA Forest Service. Blueberry Patch Campground. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
National Park Service. Fire Island National Seashore, and Off Road Vehicle Operation. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
National Park Service. Camping at Gateway. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Corps Lakes Gateway: New York. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. ATVs: Information for Owners and Operators, and Register an ATV. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Chapter 10: Special Driving Conditions, New York State Driver’s Manual. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. 4-Wheel Drive Beach Access Fishing Guide, Long Island Region, citing 9 NYCRR 372.1 to 372.6 and 415.4. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Allegany State Park. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
State of New York. State news release describing the Whiteface Mountain Veterans’ Memorial Highway as an eight-mile scenic highway. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Transportation. Current New York State Scenic Byways, and the Adirondack Trail. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Transportation. Central Adirondack Trail. Retrieved September 19, 2026.
New York State Department of Transportation. Olympic Trail. Retrieved September 19, 2026.

Reviewed September 19, 2026. Conditions, closures and rules change; check with the managing agency before you travel.

Who manages New York

The agency on the sign decides where you can drive and where you can sleep. Choose one to see how much of the state it holds and what that means for a trip.

New York
0.7% 210,819 acres

Source: Congressional Research Service, Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data (R42346), Table 2, data as of September 30, 2024. Federal land here means the five agencies shown; state, tribal and private land make up the rest of each bar.

The public land map of New York

Agency boundaries, the BLM and Forest Service roads and trails open to vehicles, wilderness, and BLM campgrounds. Select any point for who manages it.

Map layers

Find a place

Layers

Federal land Who manages the ground, by agency

State and local land State forests, parks and wildlife areas, county and city land, nationwide

BLM roads and trails Routes managed for public motorized use

Forest roads and trails Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Map

Wilderness BLM Wilderness and study areas, closed to vehicles

Camping and trailheads BLM campgrounds, OHV areas and trailheads

Base map

Map Topo Satellite

Legend

Federal land, by managing agency

Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
US Forest Service (USFS)
National Park Service (NPS)
US Fish and Wildlife (USFW)
Bureau of Reclamation (USBR)
Department Of Defense (DOD)
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
Other Federal
State
Local
Alaska Native Lands (Patented or Interim Conveyed)
Alaska Native Allotment

State and local land (USGS PAD-US)

State land
County and city land
Regional agency or district
Land trust or conservancy

Gaps with no tint inside public land are private parcels, often old mining claims and homesteads. They are not open to the public.

Dashed clay lines on the base map are unpaved tracks from OpenStreetMap. They show what exists on the ground, not what is legal to drive.

Select any point to see who manages the land.

Boundaries are approximate and land status changes. This map is a planning aid, not a survey or a statement of access. Confirm routes, closures and camping rules with the managing office.

Open the full map