Rattler Ford Group Campground
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- Sites
- 4All of them booked ahead
- Season
- April 15 – October 31Open April 15 through October 31
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Rattler Ford Group Campground sits near the swift-moving Santeetlah Creek in the Nantahala National Forest. Groups of up to 25 guests can enjoy the creek, which is popular for fly fishing, as well as nearby Lake Santeetlah, which provides countless water sports and activities. Keep reading
Recreation
The campground is located about 2.5 miles from the Avey Branch boat ramp at Lake Santeetlah, which provides visitors access to all types of water-related activities, including fishing, boating, and canoeing. Horseshoe pits and volleyball courts are available within the campground. Visitors can also enjoy a variety of hiking trails and scenic drives in the area.
Facilities
The campground offers four sites, each with varying facilities, but all able to accommodate several tents and up to 25 guests. Multiple tables are available at each site, as well as lantern posts and campfire pits. Each site also provides an oversized grill. Flush toilets and drinking water are provided at the campground, as well as hot showers. Some of the sites are situated near the creek.
Natural Features
Large trees and thick forests provide moderate shade for the campground, while vast meadows also allow for sunshine and open play. Nantahala is a Cherokee word meaning "land of the noonday sun," which is appropriate, as the sun only reaches the deep gorges of the western North Carolina mountains and valleys at midday.
Nearby Attractions
The entrance to Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness, which contains nearly 17,000 acres, and Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, containing nearly 6,000 acres of old-growth forest, is located approximately 1/4 mile from the campground.
What the agency tells you
Off-road vehicle use is not permitted
Senior access pass is not accepted at this campground
Electric, water or sewer hookups are not provided
Everything else this campground posts · 1
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
- 4 · 4 tent-only, 4 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 30 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…site also provides an oversized grill. Flush toilets and drinking water are provided at the campground,…”
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Flush toilets and drinking water are provided at the campground, as well as hot showers.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…an oversized grill. Flush toilets and drinking water are provided at the campground, as well as hot…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Meadow
- Backpacking
- Birding
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Water access
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 15th darkest of 84 in NC
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 5 days ago, 37 km away
- Minimal color
Full this Saturdayread 16:36 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
2 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 16:34 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
Every one of the 4 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 4 are free on Wed, Oct 21. read 16:36 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 · 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 · 2
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:34 UTC
- Look Rock CampgroundGreat Smoky Mountains National Park · 19 mi · 1 of 130 site-nights open
- Jackrabbit MountainNational Forests in North Carolina · 25 mi · 4 of 182 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 16:36 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
4 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 4 mapped sitesAll 4 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. 4 of the 4 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.
| RFGC | 001 | group tent only area nonelectric | 30 ft | 177 ft | 287 ft | $75 |
| RFGC | 002 | group tent only area nonelectric | 30 ft | 103 ft | 204 ft | $75 |
| RFGC | 003 | group tent only area nonelectric | 30 ft | 103 ft | 100 ft | $75 |
| RFGC | 004 | group tent only area nonelectric | 30 ft | 198 ft | 108 ft | $75 |
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
Cheoah Point CampgroundNantahala National Forest · 2.5 miCheoah Point Recreation AreaNantahala National Forest · 2.7 mi
Swan Cabin Group Camp4.9 mi
Donley CabinCherokee National Forest · 10 miFrom Robbinsville, North Carolina, take Highway 129 north to 143 West/Massey Branch Road. Pass the Cheoah Ranger District office and continue to the stop sign. Turn right to continue on 143 West for about 7 miles. Rattler Ford Group Campground is 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 Lake Santeetlah, NC
Typical weather
Typical October night 46°F, day 70°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical April night 44°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
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
Rattler Ford Group Campground 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 Rattler Ford Group Campground, Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Chuck Edwards, I’m a constituent in North Carolina’s 11th district. I tried to camp at Rattler Ford Group Campground, Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 4 sites at Rattler Ford Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 4 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. Rattler Ford Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Rattler Ford Group Campground. 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 Rattler Ford Group Campground (Nantahala 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 Rattler Ford Group Campground, Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Ted Budd, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Rattler Ford Group Campground, Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 4 sites at Rattler Ford Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 4 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. Rattler Ford Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Rattler Ford Group Campground. 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 Rattler Ford Group Campground (Nantahala 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 Rattler Ford Group Campground, Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina
Dear Thom Tillis, I’m a constituent in North Carolina. I tried to camp at Rattler Ford Group Campground, Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina, and couldn’t. All 4 sites at Rattler Ford Group Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 4 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. Rattler Ford Group Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Rattler Ford Group Campground. 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 Rattler Ford Group Campground (Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina) via campanac.com