Lake Powhatan Campground

Lake Powhatan Campground is beautiful - very dense trees and canopy made the overall campground very quiet. I was able to hike around a little bit, but take note that this is a mountain biking destination - almost all trails will have bikers on it, and they are all heavily trafficked. If you want to walk the loops and drop down the beach area you can still get some good exercise in. Easily accessible campground, and you are very close to stores nearby if needed.

This is a great place from which to explore the Asheville North Carolina area. Our price was for a full service walk-up site. Unserviced sites are about $22 per night. Most of the full service sites are for walk-ups only and cannot be reserved. A tip: reserve an unserviced site for mid week arrival and you can probably get a full service site if you want it (except around holidays).

The sites are huge, very private and recently upgraded with gravel areas for RV and tents. Restrooms are located throughout the campground as are water spigots for those on an unserviced site.

While the campground itself is remote, you are about 15 to 20 minutes from downtown Asheville. Camping here was like having a cottage in the mountains near a great little town with lots to see and do.

With our Wilson cell booster we were able to get decent VZ LTE service. TV was not as good as we would have hoped for being so close to town (the mountains must play havoc with the broadcast signals.)

We camped here in early April 2015. Many of the sites are not reservable. You have to show up, which we did. Lakeside and Big John Loops are more suitable for trailers and rvs. The other loops are more suitable for tents and smaller trailers. Lakeside has full hookups, while in Big John some sites have electricity. WE had some cell, but weak at our site, because we were on the higher end of the loop. Many sites don't have any reception. WE also were there before the tress leafed out, which may also cut down on the reception.

We loved staying here and ended up spending another night. You can't beat the location - middle of the woods, with a lake for swimming and minutes away from stores and the sites around Asheville. The skies are dark at night for star gazing and the peaceful noises of the woods reminded us of home - Vermont. Now we were there in early spring and there were no bugs. I am sure later in the season it might be a bit buggy, since you are in the woods.

The sites in our loop are large and level. The camp hosts are very friendly, helpful, and are very attentive to details - clean fire pits, trash picked up and clean bathrooms.

*We paid $20 a night for a $30 site (full hook ups), because we had the Golden Age Pass.

We spent 3 nights here over Labor Day weekend. We have pop up but we were on a non-electric site due to lack of available hook up sites. It was a smaller site and lacked a lot of privacy. A few things that stood out that we liked were: concrete top picnic tables, 2 level lantern/trash hanger, biking/hiking trails, and the restrooms/showers. Our site was right beside of the restrooms and the pedestrian traffic did not bother us at all. The restrooms/ showers are nice and were mostly clean however there are only 2 unisex individual restrooms and 2 unisex individual showers. With it being a holiday weekend you frequently had to wait in line. The campground is tucked away in Pisgah Forest so it feels very remote yet you are still close to Asheville and all that it offers. Cell service was spotty at best.

Overall we enjoyed our stay and scoped out our campsite for next time.

This was our first time visiting this state park and had a great experience. We took a chance because we did not have a reservation and it was a long weekend. As it turns out, we got the last site available.

Our site was tremendous; flat, large, and private (we were somewhat close to a walkway that led to the rest rooms but it was really not an issue) . We had a picnic table, fire ring, and access to nearby rest room/shower facilities (which were clean and well maintained. Our site (and most sites but not all) was dry camping - no electric or water, although there were spigots for water nearby.

Because of the nature of our visit as well as some rain, we did not participate in any hikes, so cannot comment on that. However, there is a hiking map that is offered if asked by the campground hosts (at the entrance station). BTW, the campground hosts were all very friendly and helpful, and did a very good job of cleaning up the campsites after the sites were vacated.

The campground location is central to Asheville, the Blue Ridge Parkway, hiking, biking and a host of other activities in this beautiful area. We spent a few hours at the new Sierra Nevada brewery, which is stunning. Be aware, though, that guided tours in the brewery require reservations, and when we asked they were booked out weeks in advance.

For reasons that escape me, this was one of the quietest campgrounds I can remember staying at, which was awesome. My only concern (and I was not the one trying to make reservations) is that the reservation process at this campground has some issues, or conflicting information that makes getting a reservation here complex. Otherwise, a great place to visit!

We were shocked to find that the site we chose (thank goodness there were some left—helps that we got there on a Sunday evening) was full hook ups. Beautiful mountainside location, fully treed and private. Nice hiking/biking trails, great lake for swimming your dog in the off season (and probably nice for swimming your people in the summer). The bath houses were spotless and updated. In fact there were heat lamps in the bath rooms making those chilly fall mornings bearable. We were in site 42 which was very nice, almost level and private. I'd shoot for site 46 if/when we can get back there—had nice up-the-mountain views and some "yard" space. Despite the tight loop road, the biggest big rigs seemed to do just fine!

Impressively close to downtown Asheville but watch the rush house traffic coming out of the city in the direction of the campground—brutal. Of course the Biltmore is spectacular. Chimney Rock is a must climb. Grab dinner and drinks at the Sierra Nevada Brewery and don't miss Hole Doughnuts.

With our WeBoost we got 2 or 3 bars…enough to work and surf.

We did not make reservations and found a handful of open walk up spaces when we arrived. Most walk up sites seem to be in the full hookup loop, maybe only one or two where in the electric/water hookup loop. We tried to call ahead and check walk in availability but no one ever answer the phone. Upon arrival we learned that the hosts man the booth and they are really never in there. We really enjoyed this park for its proximity to the blue ridge parkway, Brevard and Asheville. Another bonus were the miles or trails in our backyard. If here in spring, summer take a nice trail walk to The Arboretum only a few miles away. Our four star review is for cell service. We fell in and out of one bar regularly.

We snagged a walk up, full hookup site at this very popular campground on a Tuesday morning (come early on a Sun, Mon or Tues if you're looking for a walkup) and stayed for 7 days. I wish we could have maxed out the 14 day limit, we loved it so much, but we had to move on to meet friends in Durham.

The campground is immaculate, and there are a lot of hosts who work really hard to keep the sites clean. We've heard from others that they're also very strict, but we didn't run into any issues while we were there.

From the campground you can connect to something like 40 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails. We hiked or biked every day, within the Pisgah Forest trail system or up into the arboretum that you can connect to. There's also a lake (hence the name), where you can fish on one side, or swim on the other, that you can walk down to. None of the sites are very near the water or have a water view.

All that, and you're 15 minutes from Asheville - if you can tear yourself away from the trails to go explore it.

Only thing to note - our service on Verizon and AT&T was really spotty here, even with a booster, but it was a small price to pay.

We recently spent 4 nights at Lake Powatan. Had no reservations but they were able to get a spot for 4 nights without having sites mid visit. The bathhouses were super clean. The bath houses are comprised of 2 rest rooms and 2 showers each are their own room. Nothing communal which I liked. The showers are push button and for one shower session I had to press probably 10+ times but pressure and temperature were good. You can not adjust the water temps. I also liked that they had a hand dryer in the bathroom. This girl likes to dry her hair on occasion :) There are several loops and this is a big campground but the layout was such that we had privacy and plenty of space between us and any neighboring sites. It filled up over the weekend but everyone was pretty quiet. There are many camp hosts and there was always someone at the gate (even when we got back late). All the staff that we met were super friendly with the exception of one woman whose has let power go to her head but we found that pretty comical.

This trip was mainly for us to enjoy Asheville so we did not spend a ton of time at our site. The access to Asheville was great and we gorged on food truck stops, local brews and pinball.

Was told by an employee that they plan to keep at least one loop open year round (I think they usually close in November)

We did not have a reservation and, unfortunately, all the full hookup sites were occupied, so we had to dry camp. No biggie, just needed a place to crash for the night. The campground was super clean, the sites all heavily wooded and private. Campsite had plenty of room, was level, and contained a picnic table and fire pit. Each loop has its own bath house that contains two toilets and two showers, each private and remarkably clean.

15-minute drive to downtown Asheville. We did not get a chance to explore any of them, but there are several hiking/biking trails connected to the campground. Verizon service was pretty much nonexistent.

Overall, a great night's stay.