CampingMama - I found out about this campground here on About's camping site, and I tent camped there in July 2004.
Campground Review
I think this is a great campground because of its beautiful location in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There is a river/stream that runs through the campsite, and the sites right on the river are the most desirable. Many folks brought tubes to ride down the river, although my kids found the water too cold.While touring the park I also checked out Cades Cove campground, which I found much more crowded and not as well maintained. Also Cades Cove is in a part of the park that attracts a lot of auto touring, which leads to awful traffic, whereas this is not the case for Elkmont. We very much enjoyed the two hour twilight hayride with a ranger through the Cades Cove loop. It was very informative, and it didn't contribute to the overcrowded road.
I also checked out the other big campground, Smokemount, in the National Park, which is in the southern part of the park. It also has a river running through it, and I liked that the tent camping was separate from the RV sites. This is not the case with Elkmont, and we were bothered by the generators of the RV's (no electrical or water hook-ups in the National Park). All of the campgrounds seem to be suffering from the huge federal cutbacks in the National Park Service (old restrooms, not many obvious patrols by rangers, etc). Fortunately there are still many free educational programs, which my kids enjoyed.
