Watauga Point Recreation Area
This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Watauga Point Recreation Area is open for the 2026 season. Watauga Point Recreation Area is located on the southern shore of Watauga Lake in Carter County. Large shade trees scattered throughout grassy areas provide a park setting for picnicking and sunbathing. In addition to picnic facilities, there is a lake and a gravel trail that loops through the nearby forest. Keep reading
Recreation
Boaters, anglers, and picnickers all enjoy Watauga Point. There is a wooded trail on site as well.
Facilities
Watauga Point Recreation Area has one pavilion with electricity, a shady area, accessible flush toilets, and several other picnic tables and pedestal grills spread throughout. There are six picnic tables and two large grills at the pavilion. The shady area has five picnic tables and two grills. The pavilion and shady area are both reservable. Please make sure you are reserving the right thing (either the pavilion or the shady area) when making your reservation.
Natural Features
At more than 1,900 feet in elevation, Watauga is the highest reservoir in Tennessee. This scenic 6,400-acre reservoir is managed for flood management, power generation, aquatic ecology and recreation. Watauga Point overlooks the reservoir and the Big Laurel Branch Wilderness Area on the opposite shore.
Nearby Attractions
Both water-based and land-based recreation activities abound near Watauga Point Recreation Area. Forest Service facilities within three miles include Cardens Bluff Campground, Rat Branch Boat Ramp, and Pond Mountain Shooting Range. Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (423) 735-1500.
What the agency tells you
Watauga Point is open for the 2026 season.
Pavilions are cleaned by 10:00 a.m. the day of a reservation. Please make your own arrangements if you plan to use the site before 10:00 a.m.
If your group size will be 75 people or more, please call the Watauga Ranger District at 423-735-1500 to apply for a special use permit.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
You are in Bear Country. Please adhere to the Cherokee National Forest Food and Refuse Storage Requirements. All food (unless actively being prepared and/or eaten), trash, and other scented items (hygiene products, pet food, etc) must be stored in a bear-resistant container (closed hard top vehicle or travel trailer) or suspended at least 12 ft. off the ground and 6 ft. from limbs. Please read the entire Food Storage Order located under the Facility Information tab and Additional Information section or by reading the Food Storage Order posted at the day-use area. Anyone not in compliance will receive a ticket.
All pets must be on a 6' leash at all times. Owners must pick up after their pets, and all pet waste disposed of properly.
It is your responsibility to read, know, understand, and follow all day-use area specific rules and regulations which are posted at the day-use area.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- ACCESSIBLE FLUSH TOILETS on 1 of 2 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER on 1 of 2 campsite records
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 13 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Non-Motorized Boating
- Scenic drives
- Stargazing
- Water access
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:58 UTC
The agency files 2 records here and marks every one of them day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.
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 · 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 15:58 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
2 records · the site map
All 2 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 2 of the 2 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
| WATAUGA POINT RECREATION AREA | Watauga Point Recreation Area - Pavilion | day use | yes | 161 ft | under 10 ft | $30 |
| WATAUGA POINT RECREATION AREA | Watauga Point Recreation Area - Shady area | day use | 287 ft | 168 ft | $30 |
The agency files 2 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Cardens Bluff CampgroundCherokee National Forest · 1.8 miDennis Cove Recreation AreaCherokee National Forest · 4.6 mi
Dennis Cove CampgroundCherokee National Forest · 4.6 miLittle Oak CampgroundCherokee National Forest · 14 mi
Little Oak CampgroundCherokee National Forest · 14 mi
Jacobs Creek Campground (TN)17 miFrom Elizabethton, take US 19E/321 south for five miles to Hampton. Turn left on US 321/TN 67 south for six miles, then turn left into Watauga Point.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Butler, TN
Typical weather
Typical October night 44°F, day 70°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
Watauga Point 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
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 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
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Watauga Point Recreation Area has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Diana Harshbarger, I’m a constituent in Tennessee’s 1st district. Watauga Point Recreation Area, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee carries 2 records on the U.S. Forest Service’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. Forest Service 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 Watauga Point Recreation Area (Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Watauga Point Recreation Area has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Bill Hagerty, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. Watauga Point Recreation Area, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee carries 2 records on the U.S. Forest Service’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. Forest Service 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 Watauga Point Recreation Area (Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Watauga Point Recreation Area has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Marsha Blackburn, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. Watauga Point Recreation Area, Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee carries 2 records on the U.S. Forest Service’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. Forest Service 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 Watauga Point Recreation Area (Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee) via campanac.com