Shadmoor State Park

Shadmoor State Park is a really cool park located in Montauk, New York. The parking lot is fairly small, but it's free to park and access this area! This spot is popular with hikers, trail runners, and surfers. All of the trails are easy.

The park is dog-friendly, but pets are supposed to be leashed.

I recently took a trip out to this park for a hike on Saturday, August 10th with my brother, Matt. We got to the parking lot around 8:30am and the lot was only 1/3 full.

The trails pretty much all eventually lead down to the ocean. We took Roosevelt's Run Trail along some beautiful cliff bluffs.

Long Island is very flat, so the most interesting hiking features we have are probably the cliff bluffs and dunes. However, most of the time LI dunes are closed to hiking for ecological reasons so make sure you know the rules of the park you're in.

There are also two old World War II military observations bunkers still located in the park. This area was used as a coastal defense system for New York City during the war era. The bunks are closed up so you cannot enter them but you can hike right up to the base of them. Matt wants to be a Marine so he particularly enjoyed these but wished we could go inside to take a look.

You can hike all the way down to the beach below and enter for free! There's even a lifeguard for swimming. This park is a great way to get a hike in and onto a free beach.