Harriman State Park, NY Questions

1. If you get in to a lean-to by early afternoon your chances are pretty good, however they tend to fill up by nightfall particularly the ones close to parking (there are more of those than you’d think). If you wind up at William Brien Memorial shelter you have a decent shot of sharing your campsite with 30+ boy scouts and their leaders and a full lean-to; I’d stay away from that one. NY/NJ shelters are 3-sided open shelters with a roof and raised floor; they are lean-tos only.
2. I’ve always hung food. The trees in the area are good, but I’d be a little more concerned about keeping raccoons and squirrels away than bears. Bears are exceedingly uncommon encounters in Harriman. Deer have been known to dig through packs as well.
3. Campsites are far enough from water that bugs aren’t a big problem. Harriman tends to be fairly dry except at the lower elevations. It’s still early in the season, but late summer can mean humping water some very long distances.
4. There is a plethora of great loops; you should try to get a recent NYNJTC map of Harriman State Park which is by far superior to the NatGeo map of the same area. On the NYNJTC map, stars along the trail represent scenic overlooks. Try to hike the Lichen trail, which is short but the nicest trail in the park as it is above treeline. https://www.campmor.com/c/nynj-trail-conference-map-harriman-bear-mt-trails-ny-ny-33155

Thanks Steve!

I have already purchased that map.  Its very nice.  The only spot on the internet that I could find much info (www.myharriman.com) highly recommended it so I ordered it.  I’ve also read the advice about trying to stay away from shelters near parking lots, but they all seem to be less than a 1.5 miles from some road.  I guess some parking areas are more popular than others.

Thanks for the recommendation for the Lichen Trail.  This is what I am currently thinking: taking the train to Harriman Station and hiking to Bald Rocks on Saturday.  Hiking from Bald Rocks to Dutch Doctor on Sunday and from Dutch Doctor to Tuxedo Station on Monday.

I am headed to Harriman for the first time tonight. I was curious what  your water situation was like. As of now my plan is to hump the full bladder, but there looks to be some streams near Tom Jones mountain where I will spend the first night. Since you hiked out to Tuxedo station I was wondering if you crossed anything that looks good.

Sorry I didn’t see your question, but we headed out a day after you.  I’ll answer in case anyone else finds this thread.  It is as Steve reported above: Harriman is fairly dry at the higher elevations where the shelters are located.  The streams shown on the map are wet (at least for now) but there isn’t significant flow.  We camped at Bald Rocks and hiked over to the stream marked on the map (1/4 mile away).  It was a trickle.  Someone had used leaves to turn the trickle into a flow you could access.  So that gives you some idea how plentiful it was.  We filled up our water bottle with a little stream flowing off of leaves.

The source at Tom Jones looked similar.  The stream at Dutch Doctor (where we spent the second night) was better, but we couldn’t completely submerge our little 0.5 liter dirty water bottle.  The water at Harriman is leaf soup.  Even after filtering it is still pretty brown.  I think that is pretty standard on the East coast… not so much in California where I am used to hiking.

harriman’s lakes all have good water. i’d fill up at whichever one is closest to your preferred shelter.

(it’s also common, as you may have noticed, to stealth camp at harriman.)

Yeah, the lakes are a good water source, but it was so bloody hot and humid this past weekend we were going through water like crazy.  Also the streams were a little bit cooler which was nice.

Ha, have to laugh because I got my water at the EXACT same leaf. I passed TJ shelter to Bald Rocks hoping to find better water. Man it was hot. I drank every drop of a full 3L bladder and a 1L smart water/sawyer bottle by about 3:30 PM. Though if you get off Ramapo-Dunderberg (which I did once or twice) there are more water sources off that ridge.