My wife and I finished up a stint helping my daughter’s family at their Duck-Duck-Goose children’s consignment sale and had a little time before our next commitment, so we decided to take a few days camping our way to visit some family in Roanoke, Virginia. I’d been wanting to check out Roan Mountain State Park, and since that’s about half way to Roanoke, we targeted spending two nights at this Tennessee State Park before we moved on. My report follows:

Location / Name: Roan Mountain State Park, Roan Mountain TN (lower loop – A1 Section)

Date: 11/03/2015 thru 11/5 (2 nights)

Site:  Site #16, back-in. Short driveway, not really enough room to have T@b and Highlander end-to-end (maybe barely enough if I had moved the T@b to the limit at the back of the site.) Most sites in (lower) campground have pretty much level, paved sites with longer driveways. I didn’t need side-to-side leveling on my site, although a few sites looked like the back of the driveway dropped off a bit on one side or the other. There are charcoal grills at each campsite in the lower campground. This site and several others are on the Doe River, but most of the others don’t have the close view and access that this site has.

Access: A Tennessee State Highway runs through Roan Mountain State Park, and the campground is right off of this highway. While the highway is in good condition and is quite passable even for big rigs, it is quite curvy. Don’t expect to make good time on this road. Access into the lower campground requires some maneuvering around the camp store, but should be easily accessible. Driveways of campsites are angled to make back-in easier. I found only one pull-thru site. Access to the group/tent campground is through the lower RV campground.

The upper campground (A Section) was closed when we arrived Nov 3. There was a sign at the entrance which warned that big rigs might not be able to make the tight turns required in the upper campground. This hillside upper campground sports more sites where leveling might be a challenge, although most sites are reasonably level.

Electric:  20/30/50 amp at #16, other sites in the lower campground. This campground was reworked in 2015, and the utilities seemed to be included in the rework. The pedestals are nicely located close to the driveways.

Water: Water faucet near electric pedestal, well-located. Good pressure; probably should use a pressure reducer, as is normal good practice. This water is probably turned off when freezing temps become a threat, probably mid- to late November.

Bathhouse: There are two bathhouses in the lower campground (loop B), 3 in the upper (Section A1) and two in the adjacent tent-only campground. I didn’t enter the ones in the tent or upper loops. One of the bathhouses in the lower loop is handicap-designated, and connects to 5 of the campsites with new concrete sidewalks. The larger, main bathhouse is centrally located, and connects to one site with a concrete sidewalk; for outside sites access requires that you go through the edge of one of the interior sites. It is an older bathhouse, but clean and functional. Based on my wife’s reports, the men’s and women’ were similar. No paper towels; a single hand blow dryer near the exit. Men’s had two toilets stalls; a single urinal, also in a stall. Two shower stalls (one handicap accessible). The wooden gate to the stall provides privacy, and a shower curtain hangs between the shower and the dressing area, a narrow space with a bench and hooks on the wall. Unfortunately the curtain doesn’t suffice to keep the floor in the dressing area dry (although it does keep the bench and hanging items dry), so there was no dry place in which to stand while dressing – I stood on my Chacos.  It was heated, quite warm on a 50-degree November morning. A good setup, with the one complaint about the wet floor in the dressing area.

Sewer: No sewer at sites; dump station at exit to campground.I didn’t use it, but it seemed well designed except that the dump is on the right side of the RV when exiting, while most drain systems are on the left (driver) side. You need to either dump upon entry, or circle back to dump.

Cell Phone Service: Verizon cell phone coverage was spotty to missing; I was unable to use my hotspot. However, they have good wifi coverage in the campground, and the signal was quite usable at site 16. Note, however, that on this November weekday visit there were only 2 other sites occupied, so if there were a lot of campers using it, it could have slowed down considerably. There are 5 repeaters in the lower campground, so it looks like this loop has good coverage.

Trash disposal: Trash can by the dump station, in the bathhouse, and every couple of sites through the campground. These are not bear-proof cans, just regular galvanized trash cans with a bungee cord holding the lid in place.

Cost:  $27.50 per night, normally. The lower campground has only two discounted sites during the normal season. The others are called “premium”, with no senior (or other) discount on those. However, since this was the off-season (Nov 3) and I asked, the staff kindly gave me the senior discount, so I paid under $55 for 3 nights, including taxes.

General description of campground: The campground is clean and neat, access roads are more than adequate. Sites are close to each other between a good number of large trees, with a little understory to provide some appearance of privacy when the leaves are on the trees. These certainly aren’t crowded together like many commercial RV campgrounds. The campground is located along the Doe River, a beautiful mountain stream that runs through the park. A number of the sites back onto the river, allowing the pleasant noise of the stream to mute a bit the noise of the traffic on the nearby state highway. There are several playgrounds, adequate bathhouses, good driveways, and good utilities. There is at least one of the park’s trails that goes through the campground along the river, and another accessible across the road from the campground entrance. There is another trail that exits the tent loop that goes down to the pool area, which also has picnic tables. All in all, a very nice campground. I definitely plan on keeping this on my list of good options when I plan on being in the area, although I’m a bit concerned about what it may be like during the crowded spring or summer. We enjoyed it so much we extended our planned two-night stay for an additional night.

All sites are individually normally reserved, but I’d done a check the day before and saw that the campground was almost empty, so I decided to save the reservation fee and just do a drive-up. We went into the campground, picked our site, making sure there were no unexpired date tags on the site posts, and went over to park headquarters (NOT the Visitor Center) to check-in and pay. We knew that it was possible someone had reserved the site for one or both of the two nights we were planning on staying, so were prepared to move if need be. The site was available, the staff was friendly and helpful, we paid our fee and headed back over to the campground with a good feeling about Roan Mountain State Park.

General description of park/area: Roan Mountain State Park is in northeast Tennessee at the foot of the Roan Massif, aka Roan Mountain (which name is also applied to Roan High Knob, the tallest peak on Roan Massif), located between the town of Roan Mountain and Carver’s Gap, a gap on the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina on the road that runs through the park. A spur off this road runs to Roan High Bald, the 17th highest peak in the Appalachians, and home to the annual Rhododendron Festival in June of each year. The park is at the base of the mountain, and has miles of trails, playgrounds, some very nice picnic areas, an interesting visitor center with some excellent exhibits and a gift shop, and even a swimming pool open in the summer. The beautiful Doe River runs through the park along the state highway – Roan Road – that also runs through the park.The Miller Farmstead, a remote mountain farm that was inhabited until the 1960’s has been preserved and is an interesting side trip while in the park. This would be an easy park in which to spend a week. We enjoyed a couple of drives up to Carver’s Gap for the magnificent views along the way, although both times the we got into the clouds (rain on one trip) before we reached the gap. The road up to Roan High Knob was closed when we were there Nov 5 – it is a National Forest road of the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina. We also enjoyed a ride on a narrow road up to Hughes Gap by taking a right turn at Jack’s Grocery in the valley settlement located just before starting the climb up the mountain toward Carver’s Gap.

Supplies/Food: Elizabethton, TN may be the nearest large town with a major shopping center, so supply-up before you come. There is a small store, Jack’s Grocery just outside the park toward Carver’s Gap. It has most supplies you would expect from a grocery store as well as gasoline (and a very nice lady running the store.) The Park’s camp store, which was closed for the season when we were here, should be able to supply some basic needs. The town of Roan Mountain is about 3 miles away from the park out on US Route 19E, and has several stores and restaurants. There are a couple of restaurants along 19E before you get to Roan Mountain; we enjoyed a couple of grilled ham sandwiches and good coffee on our way in at the Waterwheel Cafe.

T@b Note: Our new-to-us 2012 Highlander Limited (4WD, 6-cylinder) towed our T@b admirably on our 5.5 hour drive up from near Chattanooga. We traveled usually between 60 and 65 mph, occasionally getting up to 70, and more occasionally dropping below 60, but never below 55 unless traffic dictated it, until we got off the Interstate in Johnson City. We averaged about 15.5 mpg until our Johnson City exit (16.1 mpg between Chattanooga and Knoxville), and then our mileage dropped on the more mountainous roads, so that our overall average to the park was 15.1 mpg.

The T@b, as always, gets a lot of attention and comments, and even though the campground was almost deserted, my wife gave a tour within 30 minutes of our arrival.