This Land, Your Land

Campers at Great Smoky Mountains National Park will be required to reserve sites at Cataloochee Campground beginning with the season that opens March 11.

Reservations are available up to six months ahead of time through the federal government's Recreation.gov website, or at 877-444-6777. The camping fee will be $20 per night, which includes the contract costs for the reservation system and is the same as several other campgrounds in the park with similar amenities, a news release says.

The reservation page for Cataloochee Campground became operative February 9. The campground has 27 sites.

The park already requires reservations for the large frontcountry campgrounds at Smokemont, Elkmont and Cades Cove, a smaller outlying campground at Cosby, and at all drive-to horse camps, group camps, and picnic pavilions.

"Cataloochee Campground is one of the park’s most sought-after camping experiences, particularly since elk arrived in the valley in 2001," park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson says in the news release. "During peak season and off-season weekends, the campground often fills to capacity. Frequently campers would arrive after driving a long distance along a very narrow, gravel road to find no campsites available. We feel that the reservation system will provide a more efficient process to secure an overnight stay at Cataloochee and will eliminate unnecessary travel time and effort to try and obtain a site.”

Great Smoky Mountains National Park will require campers to have advanced reservations for Cataloochee Campground beginning next spring, the National Park Service said this week.

The 2011 season begins March 11. Reservations will be available through recreation.gov or at 877-444-6777. The reservation system typically allows reservations to be made up to six months in advance, but the reservation database for Cataloochee is not expected to be active until February 1.

The 27-site campground is popular, but remote, and campers have had no way of knowing whether a site would be available before they got to the campground, a news release says.

"Cataloochee Campground offers one of the park’s most sought-after camping experiences, but getting there involves a 30 to 40 minute, 11-mile drive off I-40, with much of that along a very-narrow and circuitous gravel road,” park Supt. Dale A. Ditmanson said. “There is no cell or landline phone service and no regularly assigned staff assigned at the campground, so there is no way for anybody to check to see if sites are available. The reservation system will eliminate the frustration of finding no campsites left after having made the difficult drive to the campground.”

The fee will also go to $20 per night from $17.