Getting A Tent Site

September 2, 2010 1:00 PM

Is it risky showing up in the middle of the day on a holiday weekend expecting to snag a tent site at the Mt. Pisgah, NC campground?

I'm going tent/car camping this weekend with a few folks at Mt. Pisgah Campground in western NC, near Asheville. Most of their tent sites are first come-first served. I can't get through on the phone number they list and was hoping someone on AskMeFi would be familiar with this campground and the process.

posted by philmas to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (5 answers total)

I was just driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway on Sunday and took a road 215 North towards Canton off the parkway. It said something about there being car camping on the windy road down the mountain into the valley (very close to the parkway). You should be able to find alternate campsites within the Pisgah National Forest. Just be sure to register with the ranger and what not.

If you're just doing primitive car camping (don't need water & bathrooms), approved roadside sites are fine. Usually the developed sites with bathrooms are the ones that are overrun on busy weekends such as this (but they also have staff to answer the phone to tell you if they have anything open).
posted by ijoyner at 1:32 PM on September 2, 2010

How much impact will Hurricane Earl have on the place you intend to camp?
posted by MsKim at 3:06 PM on September 2, 2010

Best answer: ijoyner is right, there are lots of places for primitive tent camping in and around Pisgah National Forest. I would not count on getting one right there by Pisgah Inn, though, AFAIK that place books up early and stays booked. Here's a map of Pisgah National Forest - here's a slightly better one; it surrounds the parkway. I've camped over by Daniel Falls a lot of times and on the West Fork of the Pigeon. It's wonderful but yes it's totally primitive camping as in no bathrooms, no tables, no chairs, no grills, pack it in and pack it out. There are lots of primitive sites back in the woods; just follow a trail and look for where somebody has had a fire before.

No worries about Earl, MsKim, we're pretty far west from the coast and in fact are supposed to have amazing weather this weekend.
posted by mygothlaundry at 3:55 PM on September 2, 2010

Was up there three weeks ago on a backpacking trip, on a whim we decided to stay an extra day after getting off the trail, went to the campground on a Saturday and it was full. All the berries were in season, there were a lot of people out picking them.
posted by kovacs at 6:26 PM on September 2, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks much mygothlaundry, I ended up staying at the Pisgah Campground and didn't have any trouble finding a site. It was very busy with Labor Day Weekend campers though.
posted by philmas at 7:06 PM on September 6, 2010