Lake Conasauga Overflow Campground
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading
- A night
- $8From, per site
- Sites
- 6All of them booked ahead
- Season
- – December 31Closes December 31. No opening date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Lake Conasauga Overflow Campground is a small campground with six non-reservable campsites. This location is available on a first-come, first-served basis only. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site. Once on-site, you can pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app or by following instructions for depositing cash or checks in the fee deposit box. Download the free Recreation.gov mobile app on Android or iOS prior to your arrival as some remote areas have limited or no cellular service. The Overflow Campground is within the Lake Conasauga Recreation Area. The main Lake Conasauga Campground is approximately one mile away and is a camping by reservation only campground. Keep reading
Recreation
Approximately 1/2 mile from the Lake Conasauga Overflow Campground, visitors can access the Lake Conasauga Picnic Area. A swimming and picnic area with a picnic shelter, along with tables and grills are provided. A swimming dock is provided for visitors to take a swim in the cold natural spring waters of Lake Conasauga. Hiking trails include the Lake Loop Trail (1 mile loop), the Songbird Trail (2.8 mile loop), and the Tower Trail (4 miles round trip). A small boat launch provides boating access for canoes, kayaks, and small boats (electric motors only). Fishermen may catch bass, bream, and even an occasional catfish. A fishing dock is also provided. The Lake Loop Trail provides various locations along the shoreline for fishermen to cast. A Georgia fishing license is required for those 16 and older.
Facilities
Tent pads, parking spurs, picnic tables, fire rings, and lantern posts are provided at each campsite. Bear-Proof trash cans are centrally located in the campground. There is no running water, no electricity, and no dumping station located at this campground. A pit toilet is provided for visitors. Access to the Songbird Trail is located within the campground.
Natural Features
Surrounded by forested mountains, Lake Conasauga is a 17 acre man-made lake located near the summit of Grassy Mountain in northwest Georgia. It is the highest elevation lake in Georgia, sitting at an elevation of 3,150 feet. No matter the route taken to get to Lake Conasauga, visitors will pass mountain streams, overlooks, and beautiful scenery. The Lake Conasauga Overflow Campground is approximately one mile past the main Lake Conasauga Campground. The Songbird Management Area is located across the road from the Lake Conasauga Overflow Campground. Centered around a large beaver pond, the Songbird Management Area provides a peaceful interpretive nature hike. Many bird species and wildflowers can be found along the interpretive nature hike in this area. Adjacent to the Lake Conasauga Recreation area is the 45,000 acre Cohutta/Big Frog Wilderness (the largest designated wilderness area east of the Mississippi River.). The Cohutta Wilderness contains 91 miles of arduous backpacking trails. Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (706) 695-6736.
Nearby Attractions
Lake Conasauga Picnic Area: This is a picnic/day use area located in the Lake Conasauga Recreation Area. Picnic tables and grills are located throughout the area, along with a shelter and swimming area with a dock. Turn left out of the Lake Conasauga Overflow Campground onto FSR 49. Follow FSR 49 approximately 1/4 mile to an intersection. Turn left at this intersection. The parking lot for the Picnic Area is approximately 1/4 miles from this intersection. Signs can be found directing visitors to the picnic area. Barnes Creek Picnic Area: This small picnic area was historically used as a rock quarry by the Civilian Conservation Corps and U.S. Forest Service in the 1930s. The picnic tables sit near the base of a waterfall. A short trail from the parking area leads to an observation deck above the waterfall. Turn left out of the Lake Conasauga Overflow Campground and follow Forest Road 68 for 5.5 miles. Turn right and continue following Forest Road 68 for another 3.5 miles. Gennett Poplar: The Gennett Poplar is the second largest tree in the state of Georgia with a circumference of 18 feet. This tree was left by the Conasauga River Lumber Company as a tribute to the size of the trees that once inhabited the Appalachian Mountains. Turn left out of the Lake Conasauga Campground and follow Forest Road 49/68 for 5.5 miles. Turn right and continue following Forest Road 68 for 3.5 miles and turn left onto Forest Road 90. Follow Forest Road 90 for 2 miles and turn left onto Forest Road 241. Follow Forest Road 241 for 2 miles until it dead ends. Follow the trail upstream for 3/4 mile.
What the agency tells you
This campground currently accepts cash, checks, and credit cards. Use the following steps to pay with a credit card: Download the Recreation.gov app and create an account prior to arrival. Once you have the Recreation.gov app and an account on your mobile device, no internet service is needed. Upon arrival, pick your campsite, then open your Recreation.gov app and tap the Scan function within the app on your device. The app will access your phone's camera. Using the app, Scan the QR code. Follow the prompts to pay. Once again, no internet service is needed as long as you have and use the Recreation.gov app prior to arrival. These instructions are also on site.
Access to this campground requires a 15+ mile drive on steep, narrow, winding, gravel roads in mountainous terrain. Road conditions change with the weather and at times can be hazardous. Travel Trailers over 25 feet are not recommended. Forest Road 68 is the recommended route for pulling trailers.
Bring your own equipment and supplies. The nearest gas station and store is 15 miles away in Crandall, GA.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Cell phone service is extremely limited and unreliable in this area.
Alcoholic beverages are prohibited. (36 CFR 261.58bb)
Be Bear Aware: Store food and trash properly. Never leave food/trash out on tables or in the open. Store unattended food/trash in bear-resistant containers, in a vehicle in solid non-pliable material, or suspend food/trash at least ten feet off the ground. Remember to use the bear resistant trash receptacles provided at this facility. (36 CFR 261.58cc)
Fireworks and other Pyrotechnics are Prohibited. (36 CFR 261.52f)
14-Day Forest Stay Limit: Camping or maintaining a campsite in developed and dispersed areas in excess of 14 days within any 30-day time period. After the camper(s) has accumulated 14 days within any 30-day time period, the camper(s) must leave that area/campground and move from Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest land before returning for another stay. (36 CFR Section 261.58a)
Pets must be leashed at all times (36 CFR 261.16J) and are prohibited in the swimming area (36 CFR 261.16k).
It is prohibited to cut live vegetation or any standing tree whether dead or alive. Firewood may be collected from the forest for use while camping. Only collect wood that is dead and down. Dead trees play an important role as homes for wildlife and insects. (36 CFR 261.6a)
Quiet hours are from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Generators are allowed during daylight hours, but may not be used in a manner or at a time which unreasonably disturbs other forest visitors. (36 CFR 261.10i)
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 6
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Pit Toilets
- “…station located at this campground. A pit toilet is provided for visitors. Access to the Songbird…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…are centrally located in the campground. There is no running water, no electricity, and no dumping station located at…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Waterfall, Lake, River, Creek, Beach
- Birding
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Stargazing
- Wilderness access
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:35 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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 · 21
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $8 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 15:35 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
6 sites
All 6 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. 6 of the 6 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Lake Conasauga CampgroundChattahoochee National Forest · 0.6 miHickey Gap CampgroundChattahoochee National Forest · 2.8 mi
Jacks River Fields CampgroundChattahoochee National Forest · 7.9 mi
Cottonwood Patch CampgroundChattahoochee National Forest · 8.7 miTumbling Creek CampgroundCherokee National Forest · 16 miWoodring Branch Primitive Campground16 miThe weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Eton, GA
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Lake Conasauga Overflow Campground is in Georgia’s 14th congressional district. Whoever holds it votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. See how its representative votes on public lands →
Our roster still carries Marjorie Greene for this district and the current federal record doesn’t list them as sitting, so we’re not naming a representative here until the two agree.