Balsam Lake Lodge
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:25 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Balsam Lake Lodge is nestled in the center of the 39,000-acre Roy Taylor Forest within the Nantahala National Forest. The lodge overlooks Balsam Lake and offers spectacular mountain views. The lodge opened its doors to the public when the Forest Service acquired the dwelling and lake in 1982. Since then groups have rented the lodge for meetings, recreation and environmental activities. NOTE: Balsam Lake Lodge is not a campground and has no campsites available for sewer, water, or electrical hook ups. Keep reading
Recreation
Near the 8-acre lake are three short hiking trails, several fishing piers and a picnic area. The Robinson Trail, suitable for wheelchairs, leads to a dock and fishing pier. The Malonee Trail travels approximately a half-mile beside the lake to the day use area. The .3-mile Wolf Creek Trail continues beside a stream. Anglers can fish for trout in Balsam Lake. It's also open to non-motorized boating.
Facilities
The lodge's amenities include 16 twin beds (some bunks). There are no linens, towels, and pillows available. The lodge has an accessible kitchen with all utensils and appliances, outside grills, 3 bathrooms with flush toilets, toilet paper provided, one roll-in wheelchair shower, firewood provided, fireplace, gas heat and an available landline phone for emergencies. The lodge has electricity. There is no cell phone service within 5 miles of the location. No wifi available. The lodge provides cleaning supplies for guests to clean the entire lodge after their stay for the next guests. None motorized boats only. Boats/ kayaks are not provided.
Natural Features
Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Balsam Lake Lodge offers a haven in the Nantahala National Forest. This mountain getaway can be reserved for weekends and weekdays from early April through late November. Reservations will be open from early April through late November. A dense forest of mixed deciduous and conifer trees hugs the shoreline of this tranquil lake.
Nearby Attractions
Visitors to Balsam Lake Lodge can explore the rest of the Nantahala National Forest, which is especially known for its spectacular waterfalls. This includes Whitewater Falls, the highest falls east of the Rocky Mountains. Charges & Cancellations $170 per night sunday through Thursday. $200 per night friday and saturday.
What the agency tells you
Pets are not allowed.
There is no cell service or wifi. Plan accordingly.
Combination for key box will be forwarded to reservation holder via email
Everything else this campground posts · 7
Key box is located at the Day Use area of Balsam Lake; key must be placed in a drop slot upon departure. Note: The lodge and the Day Use are two separate locations.
Maximum capacity is 16 people per night
Click here for more information about National Forests in North Carolina
Walk-ins and first-come, first-serve use is not available for this site.
Don't Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Moving firewood is illegal in some states. Visit dontmovefirewood.org to learn more.
VERY IMPORTANT! To allow time for sanitation and cleaning protocols; Check out time is 11:30am and check in time is 4 p.m.
VERY IMPORTANT! Visitors must clean the entire lodge after their own visit. This including cleaning toliets, showers, kitchen (appliances and dishes must be dried and put away), clean countertops and tables, floors vaccumed and mopped, wash, dry and fold all laundry, ash must be collected from fireplace and grill, etc. Cleaning supplies provided.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- 1 electric, 1 water, 1 sewer
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Campfires
- Not allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…and appliances, outside grills, 3 bathrooms with flush toilets, toilet paper provided, one roll-in wheelchair…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- Shower/Bath Type states a shower on all 1 of this campground's campsite records
- Firewood
- Mentioned
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, Lake, Creek, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Forest Service says
- None
- Fall color · reported 4 days ago, 36 km away
- Patchy color
Full this Saturdayread 16:25 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
4 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 16:11 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:25 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 14
What you actually pay
“$170 per night sunday through Thursday. $200 per night friday and saturday.” · this campground’s own terms
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 6
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 4
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:11 UTC
- Davidson RiverPisgah National Forest · 17 mi · 2 of 264 site-nights open
- Cherry Hill CampgroundSumter National Forest · 23 mi · 1 of 56 site-nights open
- Smokemont CampgroundGreat Smoky Mountains National Park · 26 mi · 1 of 274 site-nights open
- Lake Powhatan GlampingPisgah National Game Refuge · 27 mi · 1 of 23 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 16:25 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 1 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| BALSAM LAKE LODGE (NC) | 001 | cabin electric | yes | 173 ftBalsam Lake | 1,839 ft | $170 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
SunburstPisgah National Forest · 8.5 miCove Creek Group CampgroundPisgah National Forest · 12 mi
Cove Creek Lower Group CampPisgah National Forest · 12 mi
Cove Creek Upper Group CampPisgah National Forest · 12 mi
Kuykendall Group CampPisgah National Forest · 14 mi
White Pine South Group CampPisgah National Game Refuge · 16 miFrom Asheville, North Carolina, take I-40 west to exit 27. Go west on U.S. 23/74 to Waynesville and take exit 102. Take U.S. 276 south and turn right on NC 215 south. Take SR 1756 (Charley's Creek Road). Go 5 miles to the Balsam Lake Lodge (located on the left at Forest Service sign/gate).
From the Blue Ridge Parkway, take NC 215 south for 5 miles to SR 1756 (Charley's Creek Road). Go west 5 miles to the lodge (Located on the left at Forest Service sign/gate).
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cullowhee, NC
Typical weather
Typical October night 45°F, day 65°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 28°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Balsam Lake Lodge is in North Carolina’s 11th congressional district. Its representative, Chuck Edwards (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyChuck EdwardsU.S. Representative · North Carolina’s 11th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTed BuddU.S. Senator · North Carolina
- Your senator, on the same appropriationThom TillisU.S. Senator · North Carolina
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Balsam Lake Lodge, North Carolina
Dear Chuck Edwards, I’m a constituent in North Carolina’s 11th district. I tried to camp at Balsam Lake Lodge, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Balsam Lake Lodge are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Balsam Lake Lodge keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Balsam Lake Lodge. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Balsam Lake Lodge (North Carolina) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Balsam Lake Lodge, North Carolina
Dear Ted Budd, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Balsam Lake Lodge, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Balsam Lake Lodge are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Balsam Lake Lodge keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Balsam Lake Lodge. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Balsam Lake Lodge (North Carolina) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Balsam Lake Lodge, North Carolina
Dear Thom Tillis, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Balsam Lake Lodge, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Balsam Lake Lodge are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Balsam Lake Lodge keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Balsam Lake Lodge. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Balsam Lake Lodge (North Carolina) via campanac.com
How we know this · 4
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“…emergencies. The lodge has electricity. There is no cell phone service within 5 miles of the location. No wifi available. The lodge…”