Carolina Hemlocks Rec Area

We travel to the area every year from Florida. We just retired and purchased a camper. Carolina Hemlocks was the first place we wanted to stay. It is one of the most beautiful settings to camp. The bathrooms were super clean and great showers. If there were sites with hookups, we’d be there for extended stays. Hoping the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mount Mitchell, which was shut down due to Hurricane Helene, opens back up soon. We love the Burnsville area!

Had a great time with family and friends. The hostess were great. My family and I have been going here since I was a little girl and I turn 60 this year.

We had a great time camping here. The bathrooms and showers were clean. Visited some golf courses in the area. recommend Silver Creek Golf Club. Unfortunately , Mount Mitchell golf course was closed due to hurricane damage. The swimming at the camp ground was awesome. Recommend Pig and Grits Restaurant in Burnsville for breakfast. We will be back, Loved it.

Always a great time!!!
Site 7 is a bit tight for tent camping but very doable!
We used a "6person" and a "2 person"
for 7 people total.
Showers and flush toilets in great shape.

If people picked up after themselves this place could be beautiful. And I'm sure fall,winter and early spring ,this place is top notch. Literally the only issue I had all weekend was the trash that the other people (gun toting folks that I had to run off from my site at check in time) left behind. It was hundreds of cigarette butts,candy wrappers,food trash,hair products, clumps of hair and various splashes of condiments on the picnic table. Also what appeared to be a smoldering shoe in the fire pit.
It was july4th weekend so it was packed. Still no excuse to leave your trash in a national forest campground. I spent all weekend picking up behind people,it just started at out campsite. There should be a litter police, giving out 1k$ tickets for every speck of trash you leave. Also please dont take glass bottles to the river bank where kids run around barefoot. Ill come be the campground litter police for 24$ an hour and a permanent spot. Also, nobody needs a gun on their waist at a family campground,NOBODY. I dont care what the open carry laws say, you look absolutely foolish. And we burying the trash leavers on the culbert ridge trail,lets goooo!
Beautiful place, obnoxious humans will get this place shut down.

Love it

I’ve been coming here for over 20 years. It’s always a great family friendly place. They have done their best cleaning up after Hurricane Helene and was a great trip as always!

If you camp along the water please be prepared for rain water to run into your site. We stayed in site 2 and every time it rained we had 2 inches of water ponding in the site with us making the stay a bit challenging. luckily the tent pad is up a bit and I staked tarps around it to deflect the water so it didn't flood. Then there were the screaming locals that would sneak in at night to cause a huge disturbance at the swimming area by our site. They were jumping in the water and playing loud music at 1am, and they slinked out of there before the cops arrived. Camp host was no help telling us all we could do was call 911. This happened on 2 out of the 5 nights we stayed.. I think this campground is better for day trips but the weekends are always packed and during the week kids get bussed in from camps. I was grateful for the rain to give me a break from the amusement park level loudness usually there during the day.

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 :).

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