Putnam Pond Campground — Hotel in Town of Ticonderoga

We recently stayed five nights here and although it wasn’t the best campground for us (lack of sites on the water, which we were aware of), this was a very pleasant experience. The deer flies were horrible everywhere but in our site. The bathrooms were always clean, the showers were always clean and the campground as a whole was ALWAYS CLEAN. We spent a day on the ponds (Putnam & North Pond are connected) and it is beautiful. The water is cool, clean and beautiful. If you are into roughing it, the remote sites are worth a stay, especially the one on the island (I think it’s R5). Running through the campground are several hiking trails and they are worth it. Heart pond and Bear pond were nice, but unspectacular. Rock pond on the other hand was great. Take the yellow trail through the sites to the Rock pond lean-to. Along the pond there are great views and potential swimming locations. Take the red trail around and you will come across the old graphite mine, which was cool to look at it’s remnants. If you bring along a strong flashlight, you may be able to go in the shaft a bit. We did not, due to only having a cell phone for light. You can follow the red trail around Rock pond, where it will connect back to the yellow trail and back to the campground. The red trail is a more challenging way back, but should have spectacular access to parts of Rock pond. There were several other trails as well, but due to the weather I could not hike them. ||||Overall, this is an excellent campground for hiking and a great, peaceful stay. The ponds are beautiful and if you bring your own boats, you don’t have to pay the $20 rental and can spend your days on the ponds. ||||Campground staff was friendly and always available....

We recently stayed five nights here and although it wasn’t the best campground for us (lack of sites on the water, which we were aware of), this was a very pleasant experience. The deer flies were horrible everywhere but in our site. The bathrooms were always clean, the showers were always clean and the campground as a whole was ALWAYS CLEAN. We spent a day on the ponds (Putnam & North Pond are connected) and it is beautiful. The water is cool, clean and beautiful. If you are into roughing it, the remote sites are worth a stay, especially the one on the island (I think it’s R5). Running through the campground are several hiking trails and they are worth it. Heart pond and Bear pond were nice, but unspectacular. Rock pond on the other hand was great. Take the yellow trail through the sites to the Rock pond lean-to. Along the pond there are great views and potential swimming locations. Take the red trail around and you will come across the old graphite mine, which was cool to look at it’s remnants. If you bring along a strong flashlight, you may be able to go in the shaft a bit. We did not, due to only having a cell phone for light. You can follow the red trail around Rock pond, where it will connect back to the yellow trail and back to the campground. The red trail is a more challenging way back, but should have spectacular access to parts of Rock pond. There were several other trails as well, but due to the weather I could not hike them.

Overall, this is an excellent campground for hiking and a great, peaceful stay. The ponds are beautiful and if you bring your own boats, you don’t have to pay the $20 rental and can spend your days on the ponds.

Campground staff was friendly and always available....

Putnam Pond Campground is run by the NY DEC and is within a short distance from Ticonderoga, NY and easily found from I-87. It's a smaller campground but the 72 sites for the most part are larger than most NY Campgrounds. The campground itself is not directly on Putnam Pond so there is not water access from the regular campground sites. However, there are 9 remote sites that are boat in on Putnam Pond. The remote sites are primitive with an outhouse and no source of water on site and no bear boxes. The campground has water, restrooms, showers, trash and recycling. We had the remote R-009 site. This site as well as site R-008 can also be accessed by hiking in from the boat launch parking lot. Site R-009 was rather open with no trees in the tent area with full view of the lake with hill rising above protecting it from the winds coming across lake but misses out on those hot Summer days. R-008 sat a distance up the hill from R-009 and was fully treed with hill down to water but it had a beautiful view and was breezy. The other water sites have to be accessed by boat and are well spaced. R-004 is the farthest distance from the boat launch and is reached by paddling past the Island in Putnam Pond then thru to North Pond. At the end of North Pond there is a trail head to Rock Pond, Little Rock Pond , Clear Pond, etc. You can take a break, pull up your kayak and...