Park Overview:

Undeveloped part of the Palisades Interstate Park system with military ruins from World Wars I and II.

Park Description:

The area served as a rifle range for the New York National Guard around 1910. Designed to replace a facility at Creedmoor, Long Island, it was abandoned within three years following many complaints about -- and equally many attempts to remedy the problems of -- bullets landing in Grand View, on the east side of the ridge. The camp was turned over to the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and since then has been used as a YWCA summer camp (Camp Bluefields), an ROTC training center near the end of World War I, and again as a military training ground for the soldiers from nearby Camp Shanks, a troop staging center during World War II. Today, there is no evidence of these intervening uses. Only the shadowy tunnels, decaying target support walls, and a few small buildings remain. Patricia Edwards Clyne, a Hudson Valley author, used Camp Bluefields as the setting for her children's book, The Curse of Camp Gray Owl.

Trails Overview:

About 3 miles of the Long Path connect Tackamack Town Park  at the south to Sean Hunter Ryan Memorial County Park at the north. A 0.6 mile red trail connects to a white trail in Schuyler Town Park for interesting loop hike opportunities that could also include Buttermilk Falls County Park. Another 0.4-mile white trail connects the red trail to the Long Path at the south, providing other loop combinations. There are several unmarked woods roads in the park.  It offers many scenic views.

Use the Web Map for a trail map.  Click to Buttermilk Falls County Park for another Web Map of the area.

Park Acreage:

Municipality: