Camp Nekon

Kingston's Camp Nekon is a 240-acre forested parcel with several ponds and wetlands, at least 2 miles of trails and unpaved roadways, and a small undeveloped canoe/kayak launch on Smelt Pond. It offers direct access into the adjoining Kingston State Forest, forming part of a long-distance loop trail (with a wildlife tunnel under Route 44) that links Camp Nekon to the Muddy Pond Wilderness Preserve. The site was formerly a Girl Scout camp, and it sits at the northern terminus of the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens, where pitch pine-oak forest transitions into white pine-oak forest. Decades of illegal off-road vehicle use damaged the trails and the delicate pine barrens ecology here, but the Conservation Commission has been actively working on rehabilitation.