Our first ever group trip was a success: everyone survived their adventure away from the city! Campers came from Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Greenpoint and even Baltimore for a weekend of camping, hiking, grilling, swimming and boozing it up in the great outdoors. The location was set in the heart of the Hudson Valley, at Malouf’s Mountain Sunset Campground, where convenience for New Yorkers is key to this campground’s success–and greatness.
Our journey began on the MetroNorth, where we landed at the Beacon station after a short and scenic ride. The campground has a bus that picks up campers from the MetroNorth parking lot–if you have a car, you’ll have to park it somewhere nearby and walk to the lot. From there, the Malouf’s Mountain staff packs your stuff into the bus, while campers get to know each other. The adventure begins as the bus drops off campers to their choice of hikes into the campground–30 minutes, two hours, and five hours. (We’d recommend the two.) Though the trail was tough to find at times–getting lost is part of the fun, right?–with a little group-brain-power and perseverance, we were able to figure it out and arrived at the campground early afternoon. In the meantime, during our hike, the MM staff kept busy by dropping off all our camping supplies at each of our campsites.
The beauty to this place is the convenience. You can rent or buy almost anything you need while you’re staying there–from tents, to food and beer–and it’s all reasonably priced. A tent rental for the weekend only costs 20 bucks, and when you arrive, its already set up for you! It’s also worth mentioning that firewood is provided at at the covered sites; so are water jugs, which are full. Anyway, once you get to camp, the only thing to do is unpack and drink beer… just how we like it.
