'Camp Mudhaven'

Visited Lewiston’s newest nature preserve, camp Mudhaven Sunday morning before the Bills game.

It is actually the former Camp Stonehaven on Albright Road, now the Town of Lewiston’s Stonehaven Nature Preserve.

The camp, adjacent to Burmaster Park (formerly Bond Lake), was home to a Greater Niagara Frontier Council of the BSA camp. It was one of three, the others being Scout Haven near Arcade and Schoellkopf near Cowlesville both in Wyoming County.

Stonehaven has a couple nice outbuildings and well as 4 cabins and 5 leantos. Sunday, we saw a couple cars of people having a fire and making lunch in a leanto as well as a couple other hikers.

We didn’t see a sign anywhere regarding access or whether camping is permitted. It seems like prime mushroom foraging ground. I am still looking for easily accessible leeks within 20 minutes of home. I found none in the Gorge or DeVeaux Woods last spring.

The camp was underused and undermaintained in recent years, first because the Scout Council was broke and membership was waning, then because of covid and finally because of bankruptcy and impending sale.

It was a great site for cold weather training for Scouts as well as home to the Order of the Arrow. The camp roads were rough a decade or so ago. I remember working with Order candidates shoveling gravel into wheel barrows and filling holes in the gravel road through camp. Lewiston’s heavy equipment is much more efficient.

It could have easily been sold to an outside investor, logged and developed into luxury homes or sold to a commercial concern who could use it as an intact parcel for a profitable campground. Either would have been profitable for taxpayers but this outcome is better for the land, and nature.

It’s obvious from the equipment on site as well as the freshly dressed muddy roads the town has been working to put back in order, spreading gravel and asphalt millings. It will be more pleasant to explore once things freeze but the potential is boundless.

I plan to visit in May seeking warblers, leeks and morels. I hope the town pulls together a solid plan for future use before demolishing any structures.