We made our first trip to Seton Scout Reservation to participate in the 12th Annual Fishing Derby. The camp is owned by the Greenwich Council in Connecticut; the event is hosted by the Greater Hudson Valley Council (GHVC) in New York. GHVC hosts the event at Seton because its Lake Hellegas has a significant amount of open shoreline, which is not the case at their own camps. We had 5 youth and 3 adult participants on this trip.
Upon arrival around 9 PM (long drive), we were assigned to the Lions Lodge, an unexpected upgrade as we had planned to tent camp. This turned out to be convenient since most of the tenting sites were a decent hike to the east side of the camp, on the other side of the Merritt Parkway (they have an underpass). Our cabin was about 250 feet from the Parkway. At this camp, all vehicles are limited to the parking area, so we carted our stuff from the trailer to the cabin. The camp has several newer facilities with impressive stonework.
At the opening ceremony for the event, our Scouts served as color guard, mainly because they were about the only Scouts in uniform. Our unit was acknowledged as having traveled the furthest to the event. We were probably the only unit not from the camp's or event's councils.
In addition to doing their own fishing, two of our Scouts helped a Cub Scout with his fishing.
While the Scouts started their day of fishing, the leaders took a hike to and around the east side of the camp. Later, with no one in our troop having caught any fish in Lake Hillegas, our whole contingent decided to hike to the more secluded (and less fished) Lake Bash. The Cub Scout and his mother joined us on that hike. The hike from Hillegas Lake to Bash Lake was about 0.9 miles each way. See this map for both hikes and many of the camp buildings and facilities. At Lake Bash, our Scouts caught about 5 fish.
Page updated 11/2/25
J. Froimson
