Davidson River Campground

We returned home on Friday from camping in western North Carolina for five nights with our elder son. Our other family members unfortunately had work obligations. We stayed at the Davidson River Campground in the Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, North Carolina. This was our son’s third trip there in the past few weeks: first with a U.F. class about southern forests, then with his wife on a long weekend and finally with us. This was our first time there and the first time in a long, long time to even be in the area.

This is a large, clean, well-run campground of 160 (mostly) spacious sites organized into eight loops. Forty-one sites are reservable but most are first come, first serve. For those of us in Florida, we need that first option. At 9:00 a.m., there was a line to get in at ten.

http://www.recreation.gov/camping/Davidson_River_Nc/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&parkId=70204

Some nights while we were there, the sites were all claimed. Despite the number of people, it was a surprisingly quiet place, especially at night.

During the day, tubing on the Davidson that runs the length of the campground was a popular pass-time.  The water is cold and refreshing on a hot day. It looked like it might have been a bit shallow in spots for the amount of water some of the tubers were drawing. There is also a swimming hole.

Sunset on the Davidson from the old bridge in the campground:

Sharing that water are the trout fisherman, though they are more likely to be out earlier and come back late.

 

This carved post was just up the road from our campsite.

 

Our last night there, a group sang bluegrass and gospel on the porch of a cabin for anyone who knew about it. it was a pleasant way to wrap up our stay there.

A couple of things could be improved upon. For water, we had to walk to a hand pump. The two bathrooms per loop were often not really adequate on the women’s side. That gave us in our building, one toilet that worked properly (and one that did not) and one tiny sink and one hot shower for lots of women and their children.  I get up early, so it was not usually a problem, but even trying to brush teeth in there might mean a line.  There were some sites that have electric, but not in our loop. We did not need that anyway, though I would have been able to recharge my camera battery, which did not make it through the week.

Will we go back??  Absolutely!!