Every afternoon at Elkmont, somewhere between 2 and 3:30, the sky over the ridge turned the color of a wet sidewalk, and we had about 15 minutes to get everything under the tarp. It rained four of our five afternoons there. We still had one of the best weeks we've had as a family, and the campsite cost us $30 a night.
The site and the river
Elkmont is one of the biggest campgrounds in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and it sits right on the Little River. Our site backed up to the water. You could hear it all night, a steady rush that drowned out every other noise in the campground, and both kids fell asleep to it faster than they ever do to the hum of our fan at home.
My first check at any site is shade, bugs, bathroom. Shade: thick, under tall hardwoods and rhododendron. Bugs: almost nothing compared to Florida, a few gnats at dusk and not one mosquito worth mentioning. Bathroom: a short walk, with flush toilets and cold running water, but no showers. That last part is why we booked a cabin after night five.
I camped at Elkmont in 1998, when I was 11, and I spent part of the first evening walking the loops looking for our old site. I didn't find it. I'm not sure I'd recognize it. What I did recognize was the cold. The Little River in June is cold enough to make a Miami kid yelp, and both of mine did, every time.
Rain most afternoons
We settled into a rhythm by day two. Breakfast and café con leche by 7:30, a morning walk while it was cool and dry, lunch at camp, then the rain. Our morning walks were short and easy: the Little River Trail, which starts right at the campground and follows the water, and the old Elkmont historic district, a cluster of early 1900s summer cabins, some restored and some left empty, that the kids found both creepy and wonderful.
When the rain came, we read in the tent or sat under the tarp, and Maya worked on her nature journal. By 5 it usually cleared, the air smelled like wet leaves and woodsmoke from other sites, and we cooked dinner.
My mistake happened on the first afternoon. I rigged the tarp over the picnic table almost flat, and water pooled in the middle until it dumped about a gallon down the back of my neck. Nico thought this was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. I re-rigged it with a stick under the center to give it a peak, a stick Nico chose and approved personally. It shed water fine after that.
The good news: our green-and-tan dome tent, which we bought in January after the old one leaked at Flamingo, stayed completely dry inside through four storms. I checked the corners every afternoon like a nervous parent. Nothing.
Bears, firewood and other rules
Elkmont takes food storage seriously, and so did we. Every bit of food, the cooler, the dishes and even the toothpaste went back into the Pilot whenever we weren't eating. A ranger told us there had been a bear on another loop earlier in the week. We never saw one in camp.
The park also has firewood rules: you can bring only certified heat-treated firewood or buy it there. We bought ours at the campground and left Nico's backyard sticks in Miami, after a long discussion.
What five nights cost
The full trip breakdown is coming in its own post, but here's the Elkmont part from the trip log:
- Campsite, five nights at $30: $150
- Smokies parking tag, weekly: $15 (there's no entrance fee, but you need a tag to park for more than 15 minutes)
- Firewood and ice bought near camp: about $36
- Groceries: mostly brought from home, plus one restock run
For comparison, the hotels I priced in Gatlinburg for the same week started around $220 a night. Five nights in a hotel would have cost more than our cabin, our Savannah hotel and our Skidaway site combined. Here's the camp math that made me laugh: our cat sitter in Miami charges $15 a visit, which means Pickles's daily cost was exactly half of ours.
On our last morning, packing up in the rain, Maya asked if we could come back when she's 11, the age I was. I said yes before Dana could check her schedule. Dana said she'd check her schedule. Then she said yes too.
