Cove Creek Upper Group Camp
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 15:46 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 14 notices
In the agency’s own words
Cove Creek Upper Group Camp is one of two group campsites nestled along Cove Creek in the lush forests of the Appalachian Mountains. The facility can accommodate large groups of up to 60 people and offers year-round opportunities for hiking, mountain biking, fishing and picnicking in one of the most scenic areas in the state. Keep reading
Recreation
Campers can easily relax with a book or deck of cards in the shaded camping area, or seek out activities close by. The area is a hub for numerous hiking, backpacking and mountain biking trails, some of which can be accessed from the campground. Hikers can follow a trail along the creek that leads to a scenic waterfall. Great trout fishing is also available in the creek and river. For visitors wishing to learn more about the area, interpretive programs may be available upon request.
Facilities
The Upper Group Camp site can accommodate up to 60 people at a time. The facility is shaded with plenty of room for tents and RVs. It is equipped with picnic tables, vault toilets, grills, campfire rings and drinking water.
Natural Features
The campground lies in Pisgah National Forest. The surrounding land boasts mile-high peaks, cascading waterfalls and slopes thickly forested with hardwoods. The group camping area is adjacent to both Cove Creek and the beautiful Davidson River. Visitors should note that two creek crossings are required on the road leading to the upper group camp. Heavy rains may temporarily make crossing impossible; a four-wheel drive or high clearance vehicle is highly recommended and all crossings are attempted at users own risk. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (828) 885-7557.
Nearby Attractions
The city of Asheville, North Carolina, is about an hour away and offers numerous cultural attractions, art galleries, shops and restaurants.
What the agency tells you
No Commercial Use: This site may not be used for festivals, ticketed events, or any activity where attendees are charged a fee. Commercial use requires a Forest Service permit — contact the FS directly to inquire.
Vehicles must cross a creek on the way to the facility; the creek rises during heavy rains, making crossing impossible; a high profile and/or 4x4 vehicle is required for access and all crossings are attempted at your own risk.
The entrance gate must be kept closed at all times during your stay. It is the campers option to keep the gate locked during their stay. Campers are responsible for the lock, including replacement if lost or damaged.
Everything else this campground posts · 11
The occupancy is 60 people.
Absolutely no access is permitted to the site prior to check-in.
Please bring garbage bags; visitors must remove their own trash. Campsites left in unsatisfactory states may be subject to restrictions of future access to Naventure facilities.
Camp only on the grass area; no structures or vehicles behind the wood split rail fence.
Check-In time is 2:00 pm. Check-out time is 12:00 pm
This campground is managed by Naventure Nearby, Davidson River Campground is a hub and resource for Group Site visitors.
If any assistance is required during your stay, please contact the Group Campground Manager at (828) 577-4910.
Click here to learn more about the National Forests in North Carolina
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.
Campfires are only permitted in designated fire rings. DO NOT burn any construction refuse materials or material known to have metal objects in it such as nails, screws, etc. Pallets are not allowed!
Kiln dried firewood is available at Davidson River Campground for $10 (tax included) per bundle. Campfires must be fully extinguished before departure.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…RVs. It is equipped with picnic tables, vault toilets, grills, campfire rings and drinking water. Natural…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…toilets, grills, campfire rings and drinking water. Natural Features The campground lies in Pisgah…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, River, Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Ranger programs
- Night sky · 49th darkest of 84 in NC
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 3 days ago, 36 km away
- Patchy color
Full this Saturdayread 15:46 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
3 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 16:11 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 15:46 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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
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 · 5
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 3
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:11 UTC
- Davidson RiverPisgah National Forest · 5.5 mi · 2 of 264 site-nights open
- Lake Powhatan GlampingPisgah National Game Refuge · 16 mi · 1 of 23 site-nights open
- Cherry Hill CampgroundSumter National Forest · 29 mi · 1 of 56 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 15:46 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
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.
| COVU | 001 | group standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 398 ft | $130 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Cove Creek Lower Group CampPisgah National Forest · 0.0 miCove Creek Group CampgroundPisgah National Forest · 0.8 mi
White Pine South Group CampPisgah National Game Refuge · 4.4 mi
Davidson RiverPisgah National Forest · 5.5 mi
Kuykendall Group CampPisgah National Forest · 5.9 mi
Wolf Ford Horse CampPisgah National Game Refuge · 7.0 miFrom the Asheville airport, take Highway 280 west to the U.S. Highway 64/280/276 intersection at Pisgah National Forest. Turn north onto U.S. Highway 276. Go 4.5 miles to Forest Road 475A and turn left. Travel on 475A for 3 miles to the campground on the right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Brevard, NC
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 69°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 25°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
Cove Creek Upper Group Camp 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 Cove Creek Upper Group Camp, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Chuck Edwards, I’m a constituent in North Carolina’s 11th district. I tried to camp at Cove Creek Upper Group Camp, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Cove Creek Upper Group Camp 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Cove Creek Upper Group Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Cove Creek Upper Group Camp. 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 Cove Creek Upper Group Camp (Pisgah National Forest, 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 Cove Creek Upper Group Camp, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Ted Budd, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Cove Creek Upper Group Camp, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Cove Creek Upper Group Camp 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Cove Creek Upper Group Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Cove Creek Upper Group Camp. 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 Cove Creek Upper Group Camp (Pisgah National Forest, 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 Cove Creek Upper Group Camp, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Thom Tillis, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Cove Creek Upper Group Camp, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Cove Creek Upper Group Camp 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 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Cove Creek Upper Group Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Cove Creek Upper Group Camp. 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 Cove Creek Upper Group Camp (Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina) via campanac.com