Help us keep bringing you the Adirondack information you value.
Email
Twitter
RSS
Facebook
Big Pond is located a mile from the Big Pond Trailhead Parking Area in the Hoffman Notch Wilderness. Big Pond is great for fishing and is dominated by northern pike, but also contains brown bullhead.
Hikers can choose to hike 1.7 miles to the pond or continue down the Big Pond Trail another 4.7 miles to intersect with the Hoffman Notch Trail.
Hoffman Notch is a 38,488-acre wilderness named for the “notch” or valley between the Blue Ridge Mountain Range and the Washburn Mountain Range. The area features ponds and streams for fishing and 15 miles of trails for hiking, snowshoeing and skiing.
It also offers visitors solitude, as one of the less visited areas in the Adirondacks.
Big Pond Trailhead Parking Area is on the north side of Hoffman Road. (43.8455° N, 73.8044° W)
Featured trips are recommended by DEC. Map of Big Pond courtesy Adirondack Atlas.
Related Stories
General inquiries about the Adirondack Almanack should be directed to editor
I think you mean “Hoffman Rd”, not Hoffman Notch Rd. For the Big Pond trailhead.
Yes, thank you. We’ve corrected that.
The Hoffman Notch area is spectacular and does seem to get very little traffic. Last summer I dropped a car at the big pond trailhead and ran from Blue Ridge road linking the trails mentioned in the article. Route finding was tricky in places NW of Big Pond. The path to the pond itself is wide and clear.
Great little hike, suitable for hikers of any level of experience, but it’s more like 1.7 miles to the pond from Hoffman Rd. The sign at the trailhead, which also says 1 mile, is wrong too. The sharp left turn off to the pond can be tricky to find, but it was better marked last year than on our previous visits.