Wartrace Ck Rec Area
This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 13 of the next 14 nights read 15:59 UTC
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Wartrace Creek Recreation Area is located on Cordell Hull Lake on the Cumberland River System, just nine miles from Gainesboro, TN. The lake itself was named after one of America's outstanding statesmen and one of Tennessee's finest volunteers. Hull was born in a log cabin in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains. Families and friends enjoy coming to the lake for boating, fishing, swimming, hiking, hunting and relaxing in the outdoors. Click here for a virtual tour of the Cordell Hull Lake facilities. Keep reading
Recreation
The 12,000-acre lake stretches 72 miles upstream and has 381 miles of shoreline, offering recreational activities for just about any type of visitor. Anglers enjoy fishing for white bass, rockfish, largemouth bass, catfish, shad and crappie. Boating, sailing, water skiing, and jet skiing are popular activities on the water. Many miles of hiking, horseback riding, and mountain biking trails surround the lake. The 6-mile Bearwaller Gap Trail has a trailhead in nearby Defeated Creek Park. Other trails in the area include the Turkey Creek Nature Trail and Bear Wheels Trail.
Facilities
This wooded day-use area offers one large, group shelter. Amenities include flush toilets, drinking water, a playground , volley ball court, fishing cleaning station and boat ramp.
Natural Features
Cordell Hull Lake is situated among rolling hills wooded with a mixture of shady maple, hickory, oak, beech and chestnut trees. Summer temperatures range from the 60s to the 90s. Wildlife is abundant around the lake. Whitetail deer, wild turkeys, quail, squirrels, rabbits, and a wide variety of waterfowl are commonly seen throughout the area.
Nearby Attractions
The historic town of Granville, TN is a 45-minute drive from the campground. Visitors enjoy celebrating the town's Heritage Day annually in May. Events include the Uncle Jimmy Thompson Bluegrass Festival, antique car and tractor shows, and Confederate Civil War living history presentations.
What the agency tells you
This site is for a day use picnic shelter. The shelter is not reservable for an overnight stay. Shelter is usable from dawn to dusk.
A fee of $5 per vehicle will be charged upon arrival to day use area.
For more information, please call (615) 735-1034
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying certified heat treated firewood. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Pets are prohibited in day use area due to health department restrictions with recreation areas with beaches.
The shelter is outside of the official day use are. Vehicles that enter past the booth to use addition facilities such as boat ramp and beach must pay the $5.00 entry fee.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…large, group shelter. Amenities include flush toilets, drinking water, a playground , volley ball court,…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Amenities include flush toilets, drinking water, a playground , volley ball court, fishing cleaning…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Beach
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Kayaking
- Motor Boat
- Paddle Boating
- Paddling
- Picnicking
- Swimming
- Water access
- Wildlife viewing
Something open on 13 of the next 13 bookable nightsread 15:59 UTC
The agency files 1 record here and marks it day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.
OpenBookedNot reservable
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 · 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
recreation.gov availability, read 15:59 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 records · the site map
All 1 records
| WCKR | W001 | day use | 252 ft | $50 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
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
Salt Lick Creek3.2 mi
Roaring River Park8.2 mi
Defeated Creek Park8.5 mi
Tailwater Rec Area11 mi
Center Hill Lake Primitive Camping Areas18 mi
Long Branch (Center Hill Lake)18 miFrom Carthage, go 4 miles west on SR-25, then north on 80, and east on 85 past Gladice; park is on the right.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Gainesboro, TN
Typical weather
Typical October night 43°F, day 74°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 24°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
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Wartrace Ck Rec Area is in Tennessee’s 6th congressional district. Its representative, John Rose (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
The agency’s own record files sites here and marks every one of them day use. The draft asks whether any could open to overnight camping, and if not, why.
- The member who votes the moneyJohn W. RoseU.S. Representative · Tennessee’s 6th 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
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Wartrace Ck Rec Area has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear John W. Rose, I’m a constituent in Tennessee’s 6th district. Wartrace Ck Rec Area, Tennessee carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Wartrace Ck Rec Area (Tennessee) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Wartrace Ck Rec Area has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Bill Hagerty, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. Wartrace Ck Rec Area, Tennessee carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Wartrace Ck Rec Area (Tennessee) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Wartrace Ck Rec Area has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Marsha Blackburn, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. Wartrace Ck Rec Area, Tennessee carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Wartrace Ck Rec Area (Tennessee) via campanac.com