McNabb Creek Group
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 12 notices
In the agency’s own words
McNabb Creek Group Campground is located on the North River in the Tellico River area. Fishing, swimming, hiking and hunting are popular activities. Keep reading
Recreation
The North River offers plenty of fishing and swimming opportunities. Visitors also enjoy hiking local trails and seasonal hunting.
Facilities
The campground offers one group site that can accommodate from 10 to 60 people. It is equipped with picnic tables, grills and portable toilets.
Natural Features
The campground sits along the North River, a major tributary of the Tellico River, in the Smokey Mountains of the Cherokee National Forest in eastern Tennessee. Cherokee is Tennessee's only national forest, covering 650,000 acres from Chattanooga to Bristol along the North Carolina border. The forest is in the heart of the Southern Appalachians and is home to more than 20,000 species of plants and animals, as well as many rivers, creeks and lakes. Elevations range from 750 to 5,500 feet.
Nearby Attractions
The mountain town of Tellico Plains, less than 20 miles away, is known for its arts and crafts. The campground is 18 miles off the Cherohala Skyway, a 43-mile National Scenic Byway stretching from Tellico Plains, Tennessee, to Robbinsville, North Carolina.
What the agency tells you
Lock combination should be printed on your confirmation letter; gate must be locked at the end of your stay
Be Bear Wise: Never leave food out on tables or in the open. Store unattended food in bear-resistant containers, in a vehicle in solid non-pliable material, or suspend food at least ten feet off the ground. Remember to use the bear resistant trash receptacles provided at this facility.
No water or electricity is available
Everything else this campground posts · 9
Portable toilets will be available on an as-needed basis
Camping equipment cannot be left unattended the first night of reservation
Alcohol is prohibited
No pack or saddle animals allowed
Firearms are prohibited except during legal hunting season
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack it in, pack it out' facility
Nearest phones are located about 3 miles away in Green Cove
Click here for more information on the Cherokee National Forest
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Portable Toilets
- “…equipped with picnic tables, grills and portable toilets. Natural Features The campground sits along the…”
- Stay limit
- 13 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Backpacking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Scenic drives
- Stargazing
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 16th darkest of 95 in TN
- Bortle 4
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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 · 11
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 · 4
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
| MCNA | 001 | group standard area nonelectric | 35 ft | 327 ft |
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
Where it is
Donley CabinCherokee National Forest · 2.1 miBirch Branch CampgroundCherokee National Forest · 3.0 miDavis Branch CampgroundCherokee National Forest · 3.9 miFrom I-75 in Sweetwater, Tennessee, take State Route 68 to Tellico Plains. Turn left onto Highway 165 for 6 miles. Turn right onto Forest Development Road 210 (Tellico River Road) for 10 miles. Turn left onto 217 (North River Road). The camp is located 2 miles 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 Tellico Plains, TN
Typical weather
Typical October night 45°F, day 74°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 28°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
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
McNabb Creek Group is in Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Chuck Fleischmann (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →