With the last sightseeing outing of our trip now in the can, it’s time to do a quick review of the campground that has been our home base for seven nights.
When we decided to visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP), we wanted a nice, quiet campground that would encourage us to relax in between our exploratory trips into the park. After checking out the various campground websites and reading the reviews on the RV Park Reviews site, we settled on the Tremont Outdoor Resort. Conveniently located right outside the Cades Cove entrance of the GSMNP, it fit the bill perfectly.
The resort is conveniently situated to explore the “peaceful side of the Smokies.”
We made our reservation in January, which allowed us to pick what I think is the prime site at Tremont — B34. The only downside to this site is that it’s on a slight incline. Not a big deal; a couple of wood blocks under the passenger side tires solved the problem.
We had a young family tent-camping on the driver’s side the first night we were there; after that, the site remained empty until the night before our departure. The site on the passenger side was empty during the first half of our stay; and even after it was occupied (first by a 5th wheel, and then by the mini Boler), we were never cramped thanks to the orientation of that site. Lots of privacy and space; my kind of site.
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We are delighted with our site — B34 (circled in red on the map).
[Campground map courtesy of the Tremont Outdoor resort website]
Sites B33 (left) and B34; you can see how #33 angles away from our site with a
reasonably wide green space separating the two.
We’d read some comments about traffic noise at the sites overlooking the river. This may well be true for the sites where the river is more like a gentle stream (either side of the bridge crossing the river), but behind our site, the sound of the water as it dashed downriver over small rapids drowned out any traffic noise.
There were also comments about the temporary bridge crossing into the campground that were a bit of a concern. We were told at the time we made the reservation that the new bridge would be completed by April; and it was. Mui had no problems maneuvering the 40-foot (12 m) Phaeton with the toad still hooked up onto the bridge from Scenic Highway 73.
Looking downriver from the bridge towards our site, which is just around the bend on the right.
Before the bend, Little River is quiet; after the bend, it gurgles and churns over small rapids.
(the cabins on the left are part of the koa.)
The sites that overlook the river have a very nice covered deck where one can enjoy the peaceful, yet not-so-quiet Little River. When we arrived, the picnic table was on the deck. After debating placing it elsewhere, we left it there. The table was shaded throughout the day and made a great ‘office’ from which to process photos and write blogs. Of course, we ate almost every meal there as well. I spent so much of my time on the deck that Mui even rigged up an extension cord so I could keep my laptop charged up from the 50 Amp pedestal :-) The over-long site had plenty of room behind the coach. Placing our comfy chairs in that space, we pondered nature and caught up on our reading.
Our Deck and Little River as seen from the bedroom window; you can see why the sound
of the water would have drowned out any traffic noise.
When we made our reservation, we were told that there was no wi-fi; but we were assured that there was a strong cell signal (Verizon). At least that’s what our notes say. The part about the cell signal turned out to be true, but even better, there was wi-fi (perhaps set up sometime between January and April). I don’t know if the signal strength was good everywhere, but the repeater was on the roof of the comfort station right across from us, so we enjoyed smoking-hot connectivity that was plenty good for streaming video.
The camp store/office is at the top of the bridge entering the campground.
The pool is behind the office; the temps were too cold, so we did not indulge.
While we found our site plenty spacious, some of the others did look a little squished together. This could have well been because so many of the campers had spread out in the available space with their chairs, and extra tables, and other camping accoutrements.
Looking down from our site towards the right half of Loop B; all of which is 50 Amp FHU.
Loop C has water and electric only sites that were all but empty during our stay.
Loop A has 30 Amp FHU sites; some of these angled sites are pretty spacious.
This is where most of the egg campers were set up at the end of the week.
The campground website lists the amenities and such, so I’m not going to go into all that. While the $42/night shoulder-season rate is not inexpensive, we were OK with it; especially since our great site encouraged us to spend a lot of time relaxing at the campground between exploratory trips into the GSMNP. Since we were booked for 7 nights, we did get a 10% discount off the base rate. (Monthly rates are available.)
Will we stay at the Tremont Outdoor Resort the next time we’re in the Smokies? Probably not; and it has nothing to do with the campground. We feel that we’ve explored this part of the Smokies pretty well. To get to the yet-to-be-visited parts of the GSMNP would require considerable driving from here. So, next time, we’ll look for a different campground as our home base.
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