Into The Woods for A Night Or Two

Who likes to go camping?  As most of us, I do, but I’m usually daunted by the prep work – planning, buying, sorting, packing, lugging stuff. Afterwards, I’m always glad I’ve made the effort, no regrets, wishing I’d stayed longer.

Here’s a camping poem I came across ages ago, by William Sallar:

Adirondack Camp

On feathered umber floor

In firs above a stream

Where a leaning cedar

Scoops white bubbles with

The lowest bough, a tent

With open flap contains

The forest like a vial,

Draws in its fragrance from

A balsam bed, the birch bark

Crisping in the fire,

And smell of dampness under

Spruces: scent that mingles

Centuries of mold with leaving greenness, where

The northern earth distills

A sharp sweet summer through the waving needles and

The fallen ones without

Man – and yet makes man

Smell sweeter from the myrrh of soil, this stream, these trees.

We of Keene Valley ADK have such a place for you, as one of this Chapter’s perks. It’s at an unfrequented lean-to not far from town, an hour or so hike to a secluded site on Johns Brook not far from a popular trail with hikers unaware of it.  It’s yours to reserve and spend time at, as secluded as you’d like; we try to keep it secret.

Email us for a date, and we’ll send you a reservation, user guidelines, and give you the directions.

David Thomas-Train