Smokemont Campground

I love the tent camping @ Smokemont! It's very peaceful, close the the mountain stream, and 10 mi from town. Some of the sites are a little close. When you are in a tent you can hear all conversations. I do wish the bathroom by the ranger station was able to keep the floor dry. I think it's built in a low spot.

The camping at Smokemont was very nice and conveniently close to multiple trails and locations we wanted to go too. We ended up doing the Kuwohi Observation tower, and the hike to Andrews Bald on our trip. If you want to do either of these, plan ahead because the cars line up to snag the limited parking nearby the trails to these locations. Both locations also require lots of walking on inclines/steps so be prepared to get a real workout in before enjoying the beautiful views these places provide. The weather was pretty foggy when we did our trip, however this did not prevent our enjoyment of the views, as it is really neat to see the fog roll down the mountains, even if it wasn't that sunny and nice out.

Pleasant quiet campground to call home for a few days. The temperature for the site is lovely for a good nights sleep even in the summer. Rangers are friendly and active at the sites checking on people. I look forward to my next visit in the future.

Quiet campground with well positioned bathrooms. The campground facilities were clean and easily accessible.

The nature trail by the B section of the campground is absolutely gorgeous. The sound of the creek flowing is great white noise to fall asleep to at night!

Pros: Great location and very nice camp site. They also had a ranger-led riverside education activity when we were there and the kids loved it. Kudos to NPS for doing these things.

The major con is the bathroom situation. They are not kept up well. They never seem to have hand soap. There was a sign at the front office saying it will be staffed intermittently as per the staffing allows. This indicates personnel shortage, which could explain the bathroom conditions.

The only complaint I have is about the dogs. A camper came in to an adjacent site the last couple of days we were there and had 5 dogs. On more than one occasion they left at least one dog tied up outside the camper while they were gone. It would bark at me every time I walked out of my camper as its cable was long and it could come around behind its owners camper. Had I had more than a couple days left on my stay I’d have requested to move to another site. It is terrible to travel to the mountains for some peace and quiet and have to listen to dogs barking. There should at least be a limit on the number of animals people can bring because everyone that brings a dog doesn’t always clean up after it. I have noticed that the more dogs a person bring the less likely they abide by the rules and clean up after them.

I love the campground it’s a wonderful place to stay

Needs a shower

Loop D is next to a large stream that fills the space with the sound of running water. There are many modern facilities and the spaces are large