Deep Hole Recreation Area
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 14:13 UTC
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 9All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Deep Hole Recreation Area is a U.S. Forest Service Campground and Day Use Area located approximately 2 hours north of Atlanta in the North Georgia Mountains of the Chattahoochee National Forest. Deep Hole offers visitors year-round recreation opportunities such as camping, fishing, picnicking, and a launch area for tubing and kayaking along the Toccoa River. Trout fishing is popular here in North Georgia so camping at Deep Hole adjacent to the Toccoa River is an amazing opportunity for avid fisherman. Nine campsites are neatly arranged in one loop and walking distance to the Toccoa River. Keep reading
Campsites 5 & 9 are directly next to the River. The climate here is fairly mild and generally offers all four seasons, so it's a wonderful place to relax and experience each of these throughout the year. North Georgia is a playground for wildlife watchers. We have an abundance of Deer, Turkey, Bear, and small Furbearers. There is a $5.00 Day Use Fee for those that only are not staying overnight, and are looking to fish, kayak, picnic, or tube down the Toccoa River. If you are camping, you are excluded from this fee. If you need to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, please visit Deep Hole Recreation Area.
Recreation
This campground is located along the banks of a big turn of the Toccoa River just north of Suches, GA. The primary attraction to this area is the Toccoa River, with immediate access for fishing and boating. The Chattahoochee National Fish Hatchery is only 5.5 miles away and they stock this area with trout weekly during peak camping season. Cooper Creek and Rock Creek are within ten minutes of Deep Hole Recreation Area, which offers visitors more areas to trout fish and more camping opportunities in beautiful North Georgia. Deep Hole is the beginning of the Toccoa River Canoe Trail, offering 13.8 miles of moderate paddling to the take-out at Sandy-Bottoms Recreation Area.
Facilities
Deep Hole has one double vault toilet within the campground with sites 1, 2, 3, 4, and 9 being the closest to the restroom. There is no water, hook-ups, elecricity, or dump station.
Natural Features
Deep Hole Recreation Area is located within the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia and you can't ask for a better atmosphere for camping and floating down the Toccoa River. During the months of October, North Georgia's trees put on a vibrant show. Summer's dark greens change to brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows which makes the camping atmosphere amazing. Thousands of visitors make the trip annualy and we hope you will as well.
Nearby Attractions
Deep Hole Recreation Area is about twenty minutes south of Blue Ridge, Georgia on GA Highway 60. If you turn down Rock Creek Road (FSR 69) you can find the Chattahoochee National Fish Hatchery, Frank Gross Recreation Area, and access to the Ed Jenkins National Recreation Area. Drive just a drive down the highway is Woody Gap Recreation Area, Chestatee Overlook, or Dockery Lake Recreation Area. Nearby water falls to visit are are Helton Creek Falls, Dukes Creeks Falls, Long Creek Falls, Fall Branch Falls, and Raven Cliffs Falls. Just a short drive and located within the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests, the Brasstown Bald Recreation Area & Visitor Center is a great place to visit. It is the highest point in Georgia, rising 4,784 feet above sea level with a 360 degree view of four states. Towns within a short drive to visit are Blairsville, Helen, and Dahlonega, GA.
What the agency tells you
Check-out at 2:00 PM ; Check-In at 3:00 PM. This campground is self-service and visitors are invited to occupy campsites with a qualified reservation.
Note: cell phone service may not work in some areas due to tower location and terrain.
Quiet hours are from 10pm until 6am. No generators, music or other loud noises during this time. Be respectful to other campground visitors.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Pack-it-In Pack-it-out. Although limited trash service is available at this recreation area, please take as much with you as you can.
Limit of two vehicles per campsite
Pets must be on a leash at all times.
Campfires are permitted in grills only.
Discharging of firearms and fireworks is prohibited.
There is no drinking water, electrical hook-ups, or dump-station service at this site.
Do not leave fires unattended; they must be fully-extinguished and cold to the touch before check-out.
Be bear aware; keep all food in containers or locked inside a vehicle as much as possible. Remove all food from the area after eating and during nighttime hours.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 9
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 9 of 9 campsite records
- Dump station
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Kayaking
- Paddling
- Picnicking
- Rafting
- Tubing
- Water access
Full this Saturdayread 14:13 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
2 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 16:42 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
Every one of the 9 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 6 are free on Wed, Oct 21. read 14:13 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
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $15 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
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 · 2
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:42 UTC
- Morganton PointChattahoochee-Oconee National Forest · 11 mi · 1 of 80 site-nights open
- Jackrabbit MountainNational Forests in North Carolina · 28 mi · 4 of 182 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 14:13 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
9 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 9 mapped sitesAll 9 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 9 of the 9 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. 9 of the 9 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| Deep Hole | 1 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 117 ft | 115 ft | $15 |
| Deep Hole | 2 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 146 ft | 92 ft | $15 |
| Deep Hole | 3 | standard nonelectric | 54 ft | 169 ft | 216 ft | $15 |
| Deep Hole | 4 | standard nonelectric | 54 ft | 166 ft | 198 ft | $15 |
| Deep Hole | 5 | standard nonelectric | 53 ft | 44 ft | 328 ft | $15 |
| Deep Hole | 6 | standard nonelectric | 53 ft | 62 ft | 298 ft | $15 |
| Deep Hole | 7 | standard nonelectric | 92 ft | 58 ft | 263 ft | $15 |
| Deep Hole | 8 | standard nonelectric | 27 ft | 58 ft | 189 ft | $15 |
| Deep Hole | 9 | standard nonelectric | 27 ft | 63 ft | 163 ft | $15 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Frank Gross CampgroundNoontootly National Game Refuge · 2.7 miFrank Gross Recreation AreaNoontootly National Game Refuge · 2.7 mi
Cooper Creek Campground (GA)Chattahoochee National Forest · 4.0 miCooper Creek Recreation AreaChattahoochee National Forest · 4.4 mi
Sandy Bottoms Recreation Area Campground (Clayton, GA)Chattahoochee National Forest · 6.5 mi
Toccoa River Sandy Bottoms CampgroundChattahoochee National Forest · 6.5 miFrom Blue Ridge, GA take US 515 north for 4 miles to GA Hwy. 60; turn right and go 2 miles to Morganton. In Morganton, turn right on GA Hwy. 60 for 14.8 miles and the campground will be on the right.
From Dahlonega, GA take GA Hwy. 60 north for 27 miles and the campground will be on the left.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Morganton, GA
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 70°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
Deep Hole Recreation Area is in Georgia’s 9th congressional district. Its representative, Andrew Clyde (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 moneyAndrew S. ClydeU.S. Representative · Georgia’s 9th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJon OssoffU.S. Senator · Georgia
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRaphael G. WarnockU.S. Senator · Georgia
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 Deep Hole Recreation Area, Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia
Dear Andrew S. Clyde, I’m a constituent in Georgia’s 9th district. I tried to camp at Deep Hole Recreation Area, Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia, and couldn’t. All 9 sites at Deep Hole Recreation Area are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 9 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Deep Hole Recreation Area keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Deep Hole Recreation Area. 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 Deep Hole Recreation Area (Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia) 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 Deep Hole Recreation Area, Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia
Dear Jon Ossoff, I’m a constituent in Georgia. I tried to camp at Deep Hole Recreation Area, Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia, and couldn’t. All 9 sites at Deep Hole Recreation Area are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 9 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Deep Hole Recreation Area keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Deep Hole Recreation Area. 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 Deep Hole Recreation Area (Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia) 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 Deep Hole Recreation Area, Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia
Dear Raphael G. Warnock, I’m a constituent in Georgia. I tried to camp at Deep Hole Recreation Area, Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia, and couldn’t. All 9 sites at Deep Hole Recreation Area are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 9 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Deep Hole Recreation Area keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Deep Hole Recreation Area. 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 Deep Hole Recreation Area (Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia) via campanac.com