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The map
National Park Service · Great Smoky Mountains National Park · NC

Balsam Mt. Campground

First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directions
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 5,360 ft · 39% tree cover · water within reach · Bortle 4 sky
5,360 ftElevation
921 ftWater · an unnamed stream
4.4 miNW of Maggie Valley, NC
39%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 34th darkest of 84 in NC

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Mountain ranges and pristine streams are the backdrop for your camping adventure in Balsam Mt. At 5,300 feet, Balsam Mtn. provides a moderate climate, characterized by mild summer temperatures with heavy rainfall. Balsam Mtn. Campground offers an unforgettable outdoor experience with campsites for tents as well as RVs.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Creek
Fall color · reported 4 days ago, 9.3 km away
Patchy color
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (9.3 km) · Oct 13, 2026
Official page: Balsam Mt. Campground Official Website →

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itNational Park Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
The National Park Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate35.56544, -83.17430
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today41°Patchy Fog then Partly Sunny38% rain
Tonight27°Mostly Clear then Areas Of Frost1% rain
Sunday54°Sunny
Sunday Night33°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Maggie Valley, NC

Source: National Weather Service, GSP forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 41°F, day 59°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 22°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

80°32°10°

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.

Measured at: NEWFOUND GAP, TN (USC00406500), 15 miles away and 320 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

Watch
developing

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 3, 2026

Who answers for this land

Chuck Edwards, official portrait

Balsam Mt. Campground 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: National Park Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.57 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 84 rated federal campgrounds in North Carolina · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (9.3 km) · Oct 13, 2026
Reported by: USA National Phenology Network (Nature's Notebook), reported patchy color · Oct 13, 2026
Cell signal: the Park Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026