Camping in the Catskills

Do you ever feel like if you spend one more minute dodging tourists in front of Bloomingdales and breathing in the fresh scent of hot garbage as you step out of your apartment, you are going to scream? Do you, like me, crave the sounds of a babbling brook and the smell of campfire smoke on a summer night? Well, look no further than a quick train ride north to New York's Catskills region - a green, mountainous, artsy region just begging to rescue you from another Saturday fighting for a table at the Frying Pan. Dylan and I took a trip to the Brooklyn-fluenced town of Phoenicia, NY a few weekends ago, where we undertook a rough-and-tumble river raft adventure, learned that "antiquing" is not the same as "cheap," and made several attempts to find a trailhead with no 4G service or GPS to guide us. 

Phoenicia, NY || Population: More in the summer

Dylan and I have always liked camping, hiking, and the outdoors, which certainly isn't for everybody. In fact, we first met four years ago as leaders for Quest, the pre-orientation backpacking program for incoming first-year students at Trinity. So we are always happy to spend a weekend out in the mountains. Our Phoenicia trip was a little different, since we also wanted to experience the restaurants, antique stores, and tubing opportunities the town had to offer, and we decided to camp at a campground right in town that had come recommended to us by friends who went earlier in the summer (when it was ostensibly less busy). Somehow Phoenicia has gotten on the radar of Millennial New Yorkers, who flock to the town during summer weekends, brining Brooklyn-esque elements like flea markets and farm-to-table restaurants with them. Plenty of other weekend revelers discovered the convenient, decidedly "glamping" experience of Phoenicia Black Bear Campground, literally right in town and backing up onto the bubble Esopus Creek. After making a reservation (and a $50 deposit online), we checked in with Linda and her husband (Dan? Bob?), a crass and hilarious couple who run the campground. Linda and Bob have certainly gotten their money's worth out of the land, packing in nearly 50 individual and group campsites, as well as RV hook-ups. It's a beautiful setting, but teeming with people, many with different definitions of what "camping" is - a romantic getaway with a partner? Quality, screen-free family time? Or an excuse to call twenty friends, scream as you sink cups in beer pong, and play "All Time Country Hits" until 4 in the morning? Yes, all of these parties are present at Phoenicia Black Bear Campground. (If you couldn't guess, we were conveniently situated right next to the latter crew.) But, for 35$ a night we got a flat, root-free camspite, a firepit, and a creek-side location that did a little to drown out the Johnny Cash, and most importantly, we got to sleep side-by-side in our sleeping bags.

[If sleeping on the ground within earshot of strangers sounds like torture to you, there are lots of other options in town. Check out AirBnb for full-house rentals for big groups, or a number of traditional Bed and Breakfasts right along Main street. There's also the hip hotel Graham and Co., a few minutes out of town and the source of the only wifi signal in town.]

Undeterred by the soundtrack of our evening, Dylan and I set out Saturday morning to explore the town - which, truth be told, can be done in a matter of minutes. I grabbed pour-your-own iced coffees at the grocery store, which we enjoyed with bagels at our campground picnic table before exploring the town's most popular activity - tubing the Esopus, courtesy of Town Tinker. Dummy hint: arrive early, as we did. The place is staffed by slow-moving teenagers, and bumping in to other parties while actually on the river makes the experience a little less exhilarating. It was warm enough by 11:00 am or so to pay the 25$ each to rent a thick black inner tube with a varnished piece of wood bolted across the bottom as a butt rest and ass protectant. A sign at the rental counter tells the truth: "This is NOT lazy river." No, it's not. Shoes are a must- we rented beat-up sneaks for 5$ each - and the wood is a welcome necessity, we learned. A special school bus - half seats, half tube storage drove us the mile or so up the road to start the adventure. No safety talk except a couple of bridges and where to be sure you get out of the water, and we were off. Parts of the hour and a half ride were slow and lazy, over a couple feet of seemingly still water. We passed by fisherman likely annoyed by our fun-having presence and even made friends with a dog fetching sticks from the water. I'd say about half of the ride was rapids, made by the presence of boulders sticking up to just below or above the water's surface, causing the creek current to surge up and over or swirl around the side of the boulder's paths, and the tubes went with it. We spent the better part of the ride bouncing from rock to rock, "beaching" ourselves and having to kick loose, and half-submerging as we tumbled over especially strong rapids - and laughing/screaming all the way. Good thing my ass was submerged in water so you couldn't see me wet my pants....

Arrive before noon to beat these crowds

[Tempting as it may be to capture this adrenaline-filled experience via a shaky Snapchat video or falsely peaceful Instagram, I do NOT recommend bringing phones. Even if you have a fully waterproof Lifeproof case, it could bounce out of your tube/hand and be gone forever. Hopefully my words have painted a satisfactory picture of the experience, as I wisely left my phone locked in the glove compartment of my car for most of this weekend.]

A taste of the Esopus

With our exhilaration over for the day, Dylan and I relaxed and soaked in the small town vibes of Main Street Phoenicia. We looked in all the country stores and vintage/antique spots - to be honest, better antiquing is found outside the main town, and a kitschy european city scape painting from the Yard Sale across the street was my only purchase of the weekend. We ate a late lunch at Brio's, which has every genre of menu item you may be in the mood for, from sandwiches, burgers, burritos, pizza, and pasta. Our sleepless night next door to the country all-stars started to catch up to us, and I have to admit we took a long nap in our tent, just yards away from the same water we had so gloriously rocketed down early that day.

Crashing at the Graham and Co.'s hip hangouts

The culinary highlight of the trip was absolutely an evening at Tavern 214, the upscale, farm-to-table, Brooklyn-influenced restaurant on the grounds of the similarly-described Graham and Co. The dimly-lit, white table-clothed space was the perfect way to elevate, and we spared no indulgence when ordering. I had a smoked salmon flatbed pizza, and Dylan had absolutely to die for short rib sliders with crispy onion strings on top. If I'm being honest, he absolutely made the better choice - I'm lucky he likes to share! We each ordered a green vegetable side, soaked in butter and garlic of course, and downed a decadent chocolate cake to finish it off. We actually stuck around at the bar for a bit because - full disclosure - we were using the wifi to download some white noise soundtracks in preparation for the evening at Black Bear Campground. I don't think the serving staff caught on, though. 

Full and happy, we returned to our campsite to make a campfire and turn on for the night. Hint: the campground says outside firewood is not allowed, but they only have big full-size bundles for sale. We bought a back of kindling at one of the camp stores in town and snuck it back into camp in a backpack, so were able to build a successful fire. Luckily, the campground revelers were losing steam at a reasonable hour and we had a much more peaceful night, with the campfire smoke infusing our nostrils and the creek's babble filling our ears.

Sunday was in exercise in how not to plan a hike. Yes, Dylan and I set out to do a mid-length, challenging hike that would get us back to our cars and on our way home to our respective urban jungles. We failed at not one, but TWO hikes: the first, a 20 minute drive through peaceful, truly secluded campgrounds and farmhouses, was Giant Ledge, which we discovered upon arrival was actually a five-hour round trip hike and would put us back at our cars too late for our liking. We decided to turn to the very well-known Kaaterskill Falls hike, which was another 35 or so minute drive (once we actually found out which direction we were heading). We first pulled up to the back side of the falls, and learned the parking lot and trailhead were under construction, so figured out the other parking lot and headed that way - down a narrow, extremely steep two-lane country road. We saw the people and the cars before the lot itself, which was overflowing with cars parked on the edges of hairpin turns, packs of people with alcohol, chairs, speakers, and all manners of children running willy-nilly alongside the road. The whole scene was so crowded and overwhelming that we immediately kept driving, hoping to find a place to turn around and reconsider. But the cars continued to line both sides of the highway and even a park ranger didn't seem to mind the recklessness with which people were covering the road and trailhead. 

Researching the hike a little more later confirmed that these crowds were more or less the norm, and the beauty of the falls was tough to stomach when observing the sometimes less-than-gorgeous human nature that encompasses it. We were disappointed that our hikes didn't pan out, and I was especially frustrated that I hadn't done more thorough research before setting off. We ended up backtracking to a cute town we had passed through on our way to Kaaterskill Falls, Tannersville, and checking out the antiques and boutiques alongside some beer and cheese at Last Chance Restaurant:

Despite the hiking fails, Dylan and I enjoyed our lazy Sunday exploring the beautiful hillsides and hamlets of the Catskill region. And lucky that we weren't on a hike, actually, as we drove into a torrential rainstorm on our way back to Poughkeepsie. Running to make the train back to Grand Central, with my yard sale painting in one hand, and then staring at the rain-soaked Hudson River as we chugged our way back South, I thought to myself that so often we expect every little trip or outing to go exactly according to plan, just the way a friend told us about it, or that those negative Yelp reviews won't pertain to our own experiences. And sometimes, that is just not the case. I think it is important to acknowledge the mishaps of our Phoenicia weekend - from the decibel levels of the communal campground to the overrunning of the natural beauty of Kaaterskill Falls. We still had a wonderful weekend exploring and trying out all that Phoenicia had to offer, bruised butts and all.