Rules on State Land · 8 min
Camping on State land: 190.3 and 190.4
Why this matters
These two sections are the most quoted, most violated regulations in the course, and a guide is the person responsible when a client violates them. Both are numeric, so both are easy to test and easy to know cold.
By the end of this lesson you will be able to
- State the 150-foot rule and its exception
- State the elevation limits for camping and fires in each Park, with their winter windows
- Apply the permit thresholds in 190.4 to a party you are guiding
190.3, where you may camp
Camping is prohibited within 150 feet of any road, trail, spring, stream, pond or other body of water except at camping areas designated by the department.
Learn the whole list, because people remember "water" and forget "road" and "trail". The exception is real and important: at a designated site, the 150-foot rule does not apply. That is what the yellow "Camp Here" disc means. Those sites are frequently within sight of the water precisely because they were sited before the rule, and camping at them is legal.
Elevation
| Adirondack Park | Catskill Park | |
|---|---|---|
| No camping above | 4,000 ft | 3,500 ft |
| No open fires above | 4,000 ft | 3,500 ft |
| Winter exception | 15 December to 30 April | 21 December to 21 March |
| Other exception | Emergencies | |
The reason is ecological rather than punitive. The summit vegetation above those lines, alpine plants in the Adirondacks and stunted balsam and spruce in both Parks, grows in thin soil and takes decades to recover from a boot, let alone a fire ring. The winter windows exist because snowpack protects what boots would otherwise destroy.
190.4, how long and how many
Two thresholds, and a guide will hit both.
Four nights. "Temporary camping in one location for four nights or more is prohibited except under permit." Three nights at one site is the free maximum. On the fourth you need a permit from the Forest Ranger.
Ten people. "No group of 10 or more individuals may camp on State lands at any time except under permit." Nine is the free maximum, and the guide counts.
Permits run to a maximum of fourteen consecutive nights, longer during big game season, and no renewal or new permit goes to the same person for the same location within a calendar year. A person under 18 cannot hold one, which is one more reason the licence itself requires you to be 18. On leaving, all equipment and supplies must go with you; caching personal property on State land is prohibited.
Permits come from the Forest Ranger for the area, not from a website and not on the morning of the trip. Ask weeks ahead. Rangers are generally glad to hear from a guide who plans, and the conversation often improves the trip: they know which sites are blown out and which bridge is gone.
Sanitation, in the regulation's own words
190.3 requires camping areas to be kept "neat, clean and sanitary", garbage placed in provided receptacles or carried out, and prohibits polluting water or disposing of waste in it. Unit 8 covers how; this is the fact that it is a regulation and not merely good manners.
From the field
You have eight clients booked for four nights at one pond. Count again: eight plus you is nine, so the group-size threshold is clear by one. But four nights at one location crosses the other threshold, so you need a Ranger's permit anyway. Call in February, not the night before.
This lesson is part of the NYS Licensed Guide Exam course. Open it in the course to answer the retrieval checks that go with it, track what you have read, and quiz the whole unit. Lessons, quizzes and the glossary are free.