Camping in the Catskills: Chipmunks, Trout and Bear

Two years ago my wife and I packed our small children into our van and drove to the Catskills for a camping adventure. Based on the success of that year, we chose to head to the mountains again for another vacation spent in the wild.

We chose the Beaverkill Campground, which is outside Roscoe, New York, about two hours’ drive north of New York City. It runs along the Beaverkill River, which is known as one of the country’s greatest trout streams. After turning off the highway, it’s maybe a twenty minute drive through some winding one-lane roads before you reach the Beaverkill campground.

One of the principal attractions of the campground is a one-lane wooden covered bridge that dates to 1865. It sits over the Beaverkill River at one of the most prime fishing spots, and the calm pools beneath the bridge are occupied during the day by fly fishers looking to hook a trout.

Because the bridge is one lane but serves cars in both directions, the proper etiquette is to honk your horn as you head into the bridge. A car coming the opposite direction should honk back to avoid a head-on collision.

Although rain was expected, we managed to arrive at the campsite when it was sunny, and owning to my wife’s expert organizational and general DIY skills, we had our tent up pretty quickly. That night we had our first s’mores of the season.

With small children, we are not in the market for deep-woods camping and gravitate towards campsites with bathrooms and access to showers. That doesn’t mean this was not a wildlife-filled week for us and the kids though. Our campsite had two chipmunks that were bold enough to jump up on our picnic table when we were a safe distance away and got closer to us than chipmunks are normally wont to do. They know campers can be messy and bring a lot of food and these cute rodents were well fed.

The restrooms had lots of bugs, and large beetles found themselves trapped in the sinks and urinals of the men’s room. I took pity on one beetle in the sink and scooped him out before thoroughly washing my hands, but did not attempt to rescue any of the insects trapped in the porcelain hell of the urinal, preferring to let the murderous indifference of nature take its course there.

Because there are bears in the area, there are strict rules regarding leaving food or garbage out overnight. The campgrounds has a garbage bin that it locks up after 8:30 p.m. and any food or garbage you have after that point has to be locked in your vehicle (tough luck if you backpacked in there I guess).

On our third night, I was making my evening journey to the designated garbage/recycling area when I saw a large animal coming down the road that runs between the check-in office and the campgrounds. At first I thought it was a large dog—we met several campers who had large dogs with them—but soon realized that this was in fact A BEAR!!!! It was walking at a slow pace with the mundane expression of easy existence in its (pun intended) bearing.

I thought maybe my eyes deceived me and I quickly deposited my garbage and recycling and started back towards our campsite.

The bear was still walking in my direction.

For a moment it looked as if it was two bears close together, in which case I may between a mother and her cubs, and that is bad news.

I remember reading somewhere that if you come across a mother and her cubs, you are to remain facing them and walk backwards calmly. I did that.

The bear—it was only one after all—saw me and our eyes met for a moment. It turned off the road and headed down a wooded hill. I moved quickly back to our campsite. “I don’t mean to be alarmist,” I told my wife, “but I am pretty sure I just saw a B-E-A-R.”

I sped packing up our campsite for the night, getting all of our food in the van and shut tight. There was no sight of the bear beyond that. I reported the sighting the next day to campground officials. We continued our camping as planned.

We were completely unplugged when we were camping. We had no mobile phone reception and no computers or laptops available. No television, no video games on tablets or anything else. It was good for a change like that, to spend time with family and nothing else. Our kids found adventure in going to the river’s edge and creating their own secret hideout on glacial rocks.

We had mobile phone reception on the few visits to the town or Roscoe, which consists of a few blocks of buildings with only one main street. The dichotomy of the Catskills is evident there. We bought fishing equipment across the street from a guns and ammo store before going to a farmer’s market to buy local honey. There is a railroad museum and several bed and breakfasts there, as well as a grocery store that was our lifeline for ice, batteries, and other necessities.

The real attraction in the Catskills is nature and the abundance of greenery. Being a city dweller, we become accustomed to concrete and glass as our natural environment, and there’s something inherently unhealthy in that. We should be spending more time close to grass and trees, or the green ferns that sprout ubiquitously in the country. I understand why New Yorkers escape to the Catskills and I am not ashamed to be among their number.

We plan to be back north as soon and as often as possible. See you there.

Being outside civilization is good for you

This August is a perfect time to be outside of civilization. I recently experienced this when I went camping with my family in the Catskill Mountains, about 100 miles north of New York City.

City dwellers take pride in being in the center of it all, in being connected to what is happening here and now. Our ability to navigate our asphalt jungle is another source of pride, the result of finding our way, learning the ins and outs of each place and its peculiarities, being able to surf upon this insider knowledge smoothly.

But it was vacation time and I took pains to be ready to unplug. My boss told me to enjoy my vacation, and that he didn’t want to hear from me unless I had video me wrestling a bear into submission or something equally sensationally bear-related.

On the way up to the mountains though, real life interfered and I got some work-related calls. I felt they could wait and I kept driving, vowing to look at my phone again only when we managed to get our tent set up and hot dogs on the grill.

It was raining when we pulled into the Woodland Valley Campground, which has plastered bear warnings on almost every single surface imaginable. It even has wooden bear silhouettes attached to its fence by the road as you enter; there is no missing these warnings unless you are blind. Even then, the woman at the campsite office reminded me to lock up all of our food in our car, noting that a young male black bear, recently made to live on his own by his mother, was known to frequent the area.

The heavy tree canopy allowed us to set up our tent and get a fire going before things got soaked. Once things were settled, I looked at my phone again, and realized that the emails and calls I had received could not wait. I tried to respond only to find that we had no signal. None. We were less than 100 miles away from the greatest metropolis in the history of the Earth and we could not connect to that great civilization.

I went to the campsite office to see if there was any information on getting a Wi-Fi connection. I’d even pay a little extra for it. They must have that, surely. ‘Need Wi-Fi?’ read a sign, it was followed by the address and the infrequent hours of operation of the Phoenicia,New York public library, which was about six miles away.

“I have to respond to these emails,” I told my wife. They were the result of a lot of work on my part and not doing so would let down a good friend I have known personally and professionally for a long time. I prepared an email on my phone asking people to email me back and schedule a call for a few days later, so I could drive back into town the next day to retrieve whatever emails they had sent me. A few hours later, after we had feasted on hot dogs and s’mores and put the children to bed, I made the drive into town through the dark mountain roads in the rain. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to go very far before I got reception, and kept my phone within sight.

I wound up driving all the way into town and parking at a gas station in Phoenicia that was across the street from several bars and restaurants and an antique store called TheMystery Spot. It was night and I didn’t even know if the gas station was open. I tried to get signal, and then tried again. Finally, after several tries, I had signal long enough to send my email. I was joyous. I celebrated by walking into the convenience store and buying some diet Pepsi and two cigarillos.

I drove back to the campsite and was the last one awake in our tent when the rain became a deluge. Moisture on the inside of the tent would occasionally rain down on my face, and I examined every sound outside the tent for its likeliness of being a black bear.

The next afternoon, I drove back into town and parked near the same gas station in order to get mobile phone reception. I got the emails I needed and learned I had a call scheduled in two days. I collected whatever other messages would register on my and my wife’s phones and then bought some supplies at the gas station convenience store.

Two days later it was time for my important work phone call and I had to drive to several different locations in town to get reception, even then the call dropped three times and I begged forgiveness of the person I was speaking with and his secretary.

I got through the call and after buying more ice at the gas station, drove back to the camp site, stopping here and there to take some photos along the way. We left later that day, as rain was forecast for our final day and we didn’t want to pack up during another downpour.

So in total my vacation saw me with only one full day completely unplugged. That’s not good. The trip was a success in every other way. My family got to experience nature, see interesting (non-bear) wildlife and get fresh air. My children spent four days with no television or tablet games, only family and books, and the weather was much cooler than in the city. I got to spend time playing with our children and take them to wade in the Esopus Creek. We hiked the trails of the campgrounds and ate lots of hot dogs, even for breakfast.

Arriving back, we found civilization had not improved much. Civic life continues to become more vile and violent, and to comment on events of the day has become a futile exercise.

Being outside civilization is a good thing. We cannot escape it but in short bursts, and we must learn to savor these.