Carolina Hemlocks Rec Area

Stopped here for solo camping for two nights while visiting Mt. Mitchell! It's a very quiet camping area and the showers are warm and everything just has a cozy feeling! There are a few trails in the area, I believe, but most of them are a little drive down the road. I had only a little cell service most of the time (Verizon network) but it's better at the campsite than it was on the mountain, which was sketchy. If I come back to Mt. Mitchell (it was a long drive to get me here), I definitely will be staying here again!

Nice site. You can explore trails around the area and even go swimming nearby. The site had a fire pit and even a bench with a table. The katydids were very vocal on the night I stayed.

Beautiful!

We always enjoy camping at the Hemlocks. The atmosphere is relaxing and enjoyable. They do an excellent job of keeping the facilities clean!

Our hosts were so kind! We had reservations for Sunday through Wednesday but decided to arrive 2 days early and add a couple extra days to our trip. We were just going to pick a first come first serve spot, but there were none available and we were crushed. We decided to hang around, and within an hour, they had something that came available and they made sure that we knew about it. Of course, the kids and I were overjoyed the rest of our stay was beautiful, memorable, and we will definitely be coming back!

Kids absolutely love it there. Big rocks to climb. Swimming. Tubing.

The campground is in an amazing location . I loved the fact that it was not very full and we had some sort of privacy . Couple of serious issues - hot water runs out quick, with the rain the toilets clogged . The most serious problem we ran into was noise . Day one - someone woke up and started speaking very loudly on the other side of the campground at 4 am . None of the hosts approached him and it went on for over an hour until he left . Another night what seemed to be the same man was chopping wood at 1 am . Yelling and disturbing the entire campground . None of the hosts reacted in either situation .

I stepped on a grounded hornets nest and got lit up while cutting wood and I'm still giving 5 stars. It's awesome to have a river walking distance from campsite to tube in and swim. Facilities were fine, water wasn't hot but pressure was good. Staff was friendly and felt bad about the hornets. Not a ton of privacy so if that's a pain point I'd consider elsewhere. Road noise was not bad at campsite I was at.

We have been camping at Hemlocks for 30 years and love it so much, This makes what we witnessed this year so sad and infuriating. It was literally a free for all with zero management.
-Hosts who were practically non-existent. The camp office was open for about 30 minutes starting around 9 am. After that it was hit or miss
-Campers driving multiple cars INTO campsites. No cars on the spurs where they are required to be parked. Over the limit of vehicles at multiple campsites. Campers parked in campsites,not on parking pads.
-Day use people using campsites for the day causing people looking for spots to assume they were taken.
-Day use people parking multiple cars in the river picnic area. One Saturday we counted at least 10 cars down there. The grass that the forest service planted to help with erosion has been killed.
-Campers cutting actual trees to burn.
-My SIL walked into the mens bathroom to find shattered beer bottles,broken glass everywhere and no host to alert. He cleaned it up himself
-Campers yelling,singing,playing,music until 3 and 4 in the morning.
- Broken glass at the campsite next to us which I was going to clean up. I went to get a bag and came back to find a host had appeared and was blowing the glass all over the place. It took us 30 minutes to find it all.
This level of gross mismanagement is appalling. If something is not done Hemlocks will be ruined. Ive never written a bad review but what I experienced the 2 weeks I was there had to be noted. I hope someone in authority sees my review and takes some kind of action! For those of us who love Hemlocks seeing it being treated this way is heartbreaking

The river is absolutely beautiful. Next time we will bring tubes so we can take advantage of the drop in/drop off tubing experience conveniently located right on site. Bathrooms were clean. It’s probably mentioned somewhere, but I was a little surprised that showers are on the river side only. It was an easy trek across 80, so no big deal. Come prepared! Not many places close by to get supplies, which is a good thing :).