Walaby wrote:
Im with Lantley on this. Most Ga parks are apparently like Va. Non site specific and you pick a vacant site when you come in. I wouldn't be happy if two of the better sites were left unfilled overnight and I had to take a lesser site, even though I was there before the other members of their party.
Mike
During the summer I went to Standing Indian Forest Service Campground in NC on a sunday. No reservation as I figured that the place would clear out on Sunday afternoon. Well, the host said they had been so busy they had not had time to ride the golf cart and see what was open, so I drove all 5 loops. Lots of sites vacant with reservation tags on the posts on the front loop. Many of the dates were two or three days prior, yet the sites were still "reserved". The official rules are the site has to be occupied the first night or you lose it, and you have to have a "sleeping device" in the site to hold it.
Well I found a site that actually was rather nice after I got in it, on the back loop, terrible road, pretty nice site, great shower house. Site next to me had a small tent sitting on it. Turns out everyone sends "momma" up early in the morning to save the spot with a tent and then "dad" shows up later that day with the camper.
I had a friend who was planning on coming up on Monday. I drove up the road (after warning the host I was not leaving for good) and about two miles up the road the cell phone works at a gap in the mountain. I called my friend and warned him that the place was full and didn't appear that anyone would be leaving.
The place was full of large families staying the two full weeks (based on the tags on the posts) and they were set up like an army with a full field kitchen, canopies, tarps, etc, screaming kids on bikes, and a county school "activity bus" full of kids brought up to have fun in the Natahala River that goes right thru the camp.
Next morning I walked the two miles up to the paved pull off where the phone worked, sat on a guard rail and called my friend (it was peaceful with chirping birds, etc all the way), My friend said he was going to Black Rock Mountain SP in Georgia, so I told him I would meet him there. Went back, and packed up and checked out. There was a woman in a car with a pup tent waiting for a site.
It gets more stupid.
Got to Black Rock Mtn Park. My friend had just unhitched and set up, and was heading up to the office to pay. We discussed where I would park, as the site next to my friend was a ADA site (only because it was across from the showers and was very flat) It had a reservation tag on it from several days before. Host said park in it, if someone showed up we would sort it out. At the office, the Ranger hesitated but said OK after the desk clerk said she had heard nothing from the reservation even after having called and left a message....... You think its time to pull the reservation tag???? Should have been done the second morning of no show. They told me the ADA site gets reserved mistakenly because it is the ONLY reserve-able site on the web site.
We had a great time, it was a wonderful park, except for the tent campers occupying 60 ft deep sites even with signs on the sites "requesting" tent campers to leave those sites for large RV's, and plenty of open tent sites.
Charles
