Beartree Recreation Area

Great spot for a weekend camping. Bathrooms, showers, rv waste water dump, kids playground, great hiking trails, biking trails, motorcycle off road trails by FR90 and they have a BEACH to chill on. Only real down side is price. $24 a night and up is a little silly for camping in the woods.

We decided to camp here for our week of vacation. The camp hosts were very friendly and helpful. Bathrooms and showers were kept very clean. We had the park almost to ourselves for a good part of the week. Very Peaceful. Great hiking all around this area. Don't miss the hike to Mount Rogers.

I want to give this place 5 stars for the sheer beauty and solitude of the campground, however there were some very serious issues that need to be addressed and was torn between 3 and 4 stars because of it. The campground itself, fantastic! Large spacious sites, tall trees and lush foilage, a trickling creek right in our campsite, really, what more could we ask for? It was private, quiet, peaceful and with no hookups at all, it was dark and lovely. Staff: What interaction we had was pleasant, helpful and friendly. We knew this would be dry camping, and all information led to the impression that there would be water fill spigots around the park, bath houses with "hot showers", and a dump at the park exit. We are self contained and put a bit of fresh water in our tank before we arrived. It's sure good we did because the water from the spigots was a strange deep yellow color. The bathhouses in our entire loop were closed, no toilets other than porta potties and no "hot showers", in addition, when we checked out and tried to dump, the dump was a mess. It was full and there was "dump" and toilet paper all around. In addition, it's on the wrong side, so you have to try to turn your rig around and go in backwards to be on the right side... which of course doesn't matter because you can't use it. We asked a volunteer about the bathhouses and yellow water. He replied that he'd been drinking the yellow water for a few months and was fine... hmmm... I'm not willing to take that chance. He also informed us that 1 of 2 pumps in the lift station died 4 years ago and was not replaced because they can't get the parts .. in 4 years???? Then last year the other pump died, so they are "working on it" .... for a year! That's unacceptable. However, the beauty of the place overwhelms and makes it worth going if you just don't need the other stuff. Take your full tanks down the mountain to a place you can dump I suppose.

Really enjoyed our stay. We had a scout troop. I was very impressed that everyone around us, minus the coyotes, observed the quiet hours from exactly 10pm to 7am. It was beautiful there. We took a hike up the trail to the old shelter on the Old AT trail. We were there for the Virginia Creeper Trail. The water looked dirty but we had water, no big deal. The guy doing the survey was so helpful, he gave us pointers as to the more interesting hike, so we took his advice and enjoyed our hike.

Beautiful place in dense Forrest. Most of the campsites you can't see your neighbors. Pretty quiet for the most part because of this. Seems like the first turn in of the non-group camping was less crowded and better bath houses, probably because it's the side where the camp host lives, but he didn't bother us at all. Hot showers and TP in both bathhouses on this side of the park. Cool looking old school playgrounds at each camp sections. Prices are pretty high if you are trying to rent a double campsite. Plenty of room on a single camp site. They all have a picnic table and a fire pit/grill. The host rode around on his golf cart a few times, but didn't harass us. You can get right on the Virginia Creeper Trail, Appalachian trail, and/or MTB trails right from the park without having to drive. A few water spigots around the park to wash you bike off if you need to. Might be good to bring a short piece of water hose to wash it off with, but we just used water bottles and our hands.

A beautiful recreational area for hiking and a picnic. We walked the loop trail around the lake and stopped on the beach for some play time. The park was working on maintenance in 2024 for the beach area and bathrooms but has since suffered from hurricane damage and may not open in 2025. It's still available to visit, you just have to use the port-a-johns. The lake is stocked with trout and the only other person we saw there had quite the trout haul! If you park at the trailhead we did, you can actually use a stroller all the way to the beach. However I would come the same way back because the other side of the lake trail isn't as stroller friendly. Very family friendly area, our toddler had a blast walking over bridges and playing on the beach.

This is a beautiful rec area, huge, with a lake, and hiking trails that has been decimated by Hurricane Helene. The AT conservancy is working to put it all back together. As of today, 4-19-25, I advise you visit next year. I was in the rec area on 4-17-25.