Horse Creek 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 13 of the next 13 nights; a database flag says not open read 15:41 UTC
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 1714 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Horse Creek Recreation Area is located eight miles from Greeneville, off TN 107 north. This recreation area is nestled into a hardwood cove beside its namesake, Horse Creek. Horse Creek is located in the Chuckey area of Greeneville, TN. The campground is primarily walk-in, tent camping only. With plenty of forest-related activities to do around the campground and being located right outside the city of Greeneville, Horse Creek is the perfect place to stay! Numerous hiking trails, picnic areas, and swimming spots are located within Horse Creek. Keep reading
Recreation
There are several native trout streams within and nearby Horse Creek Recreation Area. See Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency for permits as well as rules and regulations on fishing. There are two areas for picnicking in the Horse Creek Recreation Area, one upstream and one downstream of the campground. Multiple hiking trails can be accessed from Horse Creek.
Facilities
Horse Creek Recreation Area offers a bathhouse for campers use. The bathhouse includes hot showers, flushable toilets, and sinks.
Natural Features
Squibb Creek Falls: Get your feet wet on this 4-mile (round trip) trail on your way to see the 25-foot tall Squibb Creek Falls. This trail lies almost entirely in the Congressionally designated Sampson Mountain Wilderness. Please take extra caution when hiking this trail, as trails are not blazed and stream crossings may be difficult to negotiate. Pete's Branch Falls: This short, easy trail starts to the left of Poplar Cove trailhead after the first creek crossing. The trail follows the creek with 5 creek crossings to a 45-foot waterfall. It is recommended to come during the wet spring and fall months, where the abundance of water makes for optimal viewing. During the dry months, you can expect just a trickle coming over the falls. Please note that hiking or driving on Forest Road 94 requires several creek crossings. Hiking from the trailhead requires an additional 1.5 (each way) hike. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (423) 638-4109.
What the agency tells you
It is your responsibility to read, know, understand, and follow all specific rules and regulations which are also posted at the campground.
Be Bear Wise: Food storage compliance is strictly enforced. Store all food and trash in hard-sided containers and vehicles while not in use. Never have attractants in your tent. Violations of the food storage order are ticketable offenses and subject to fines. Food and trash left unattended will be impounded by campground staff. A copy of the Food Storage Order can be found at https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/nfs/files/r08/cherokee/publication/Food%20and%20Refuse%20Storage%20Requirements.pdf
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.
Everything else this campground posts · 10
The following items are expressly prohibited: o Firearms and fireworks o Alcohol and illegal drugs o Public nudity
All sites are primitive, walk-in camping only. Water and electricity are NOT available at the sites. Walking is required to access the sites.
The bathhouse and bathrooms are located a considerable distance from the sites.
Use designated fire rings for all fires. Do not build additional fire rings. No burning plastic or other non-wood materials except local wood in fire pits and charcoal in grills.
Max of 5 people per site, including infants and children. Max of 2 tents and 1 canopy.
There is one public water spigot located next to the host site.
All users' equipment must be contained within the site. Sites must be kept neat and orderly.
All animals must be crated or on a leash not longer than 6 feet.
Check-out time is 12:00PM. Check-in time is 2:00PM. If you arrive earlier, you may have to wait for a campsite.
Forest Service Volunteer Campground Hosts help manage the area and can provide visitor information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 17 · 13 walk-in
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- Shower/Bath Type states a shower on 13 campsite record(s) that are not a cabin, of this campground's 18
- Stay limit
- 13 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, Creek
Full this Saturdayread 15:41 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
Every one of the 5 sites on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 12 are free on Mon, Oct 19. read 15:41 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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $10 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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:41 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
18 records
All 18 records
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 18 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Horse Creek | Host Site | host pad | |
| Horse Creek | Site 1 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 10 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 11 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 12 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 13 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 14 | standard nonelectric | $10 |
| Horse Creek | Site 2 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 3 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 4 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 5 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 6 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 7 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 8 | walk to | |
| Horse Creek | Site 9 | walk to | |
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 2 | type not stated | |
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 3 | type not stated | |
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 4 | type not stated |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It names it a host pad. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
Horse Creek Pavilion DAY USECherokee National Forest · 0.1 miOld Forge Recreation AreaCherokee National Forest · 1.8 miOld Forge CampgroundCherokee National Forest · 1.8 mi
Katy BranchCherokee Purchase Unit · 8.6 mi
Paint Creek CampgroundCherokee National Forest · 14 mi
Rock Creek Recreation Area (Cherokee National Forest, TN)Cherokee National Forest · 17 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Tusculum, TN
Typical weather
Typical October night 44°F, day 72°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 26°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
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Horse Creek Recreation Area is in Tennessee’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Diana Harshbarger (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 moneyDiana HarshbargerU.S. Representative · Tennessee’s 1st district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationBill HagertyU.S. Senator · Tennessee
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMarsha BlackburnU.S. Senator · Tennessee
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 Horse Creek Recreation Area, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee
Dear Diana Harshbarger, I’m a constituent in Tennessee’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Horse Creek Recreation Area, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 14 of the 17 campsites the agency files at Horse Creek Recreation Area, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 5 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Horse Creek Recreation Area keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Horse Creek 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 Horse Creek Recreation Area (Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee) 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 Horse Creek Recreation Area, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee
Dear Bill Hagerty, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. I tried to camp at Horse Creek Recreation Area, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 14 of the 17 campsites the agency files at Horse Creek Recreation Area, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 5 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Horse Creek Recreation Area keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Horse Creek 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 Horse Creek Recreation Area (Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee) 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 Horse Creek Recreation Area, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee
Dear Marsha Blackburn, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. I tried to camp at Horse Creek Recreation Area, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 14 of the 17 campsites the agency files at Horse Creek Recreation Area, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 5 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Horse Creek Recreation Area keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Horse Creek 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 Horse Creek Recreation Area (Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee) via campanac.com