fontana dam

never camped there but I have been there at least 100 times I ride street bikes up there all the time in the deals gap areas I have rented cabin there a few times wich is really cool the dam is awesome you can drive all the way over it and look way down and there is some great views waterfalls and hikeing
 
If you want to primitive tent camp, there is free camping close by in robbinsville either at Lake Santeetlah, Snow Bird Creek, or Santeetlah creek all NF camp sites
 
I camped eagle creek last September. Paddled in from Fontana marina. Saw two black bears and a coyote. Pretty good place.
 
I did the camping/mt biking thing once at Fontana Lake and Tsali almost 20 years ago. I have no idea where we camped, but there was not a soul nearby. It was pretty cool, that's about all I got :D
 
Fontana Village has their campground just right down from the base of the dam. Quite the sight to sit there and stare at the big wall knowing there is a couple of gallons of water sitting behind. Nice flat campground with bathhouse. You can drive up a few minutes to the village for a restaurant, store, mini-golf, horse riding. We toured the dam, then drove across and hiked up to Shuckstack fire tower. Nice secluded, scenic area. I know there some FS campgrounds but never been there.
 
You can camp at Cable Cove Park( http://www.main.nc.us/graham/hiking/cablecov.html ). Its a great place to camp if you're paddling the lake by day. Not much else going on in that camping area though. Last october we paddled the 7mile round trip to Proctor, hiked three miles there and biked 12miles at Tsali.....in the same day:D We wound up walking about the last .5mile out of Tsali with no lights, in the DARK:lol: I mean like 9:30ish pm before the leaves fell in October dark. We obviously weren't as fast as we thought we were.
That area is an outdoor paradise. Lots of good info in the above link.
 
Great summer campgroung!! That icy cold water conning off the bottom of the lake really helps keep thing cool. Even in July you can feel the temp drop when they flow the water. And they have the best fire works show I've seen.
 
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