Basin Cove Backcountry Camping
October 2026
About
Overview
Basin Cove backcountry is a primitive camp located in historic Basin Cove at Doughton Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.. Multiple trails allow access to the primitive campground. Click to see a map Doughton Park Hiking Trails
Overnight parking for backcountry is permitted at designated areas.
From the parkway, the trails descend over 1500 feet into the Basin Cove Area. Easiest trail is the Grassy Gap Fire Road entrance from Longbottom Road.
This year-round campground has eight campsites each with individual fire rings, lantern post, and food storage boxes. No pit toilet or privy exists. Note particularly that surface water is unsafe. Water from natural sources must be purified by boiling or filtering and disinfecting.
Thunderstorms are common along the escarpment.
Cell phones most likely do not work in the area.
Multiple creeks provide fishing opportunities.
Recreation
Doughton Park trails system offers more than 28 miles of hiking trails. From the campsites, trails ascend 1,500 feet to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The most difficult trail up to the parkway is the Bluff’s primitive trail. The easiest route in and out of the campsite is at Longbottom Road via the Grassy Gap Fire Road.
Facilities
This year-round backcountry camping area has eight campsites each with individual fire rings, lantern post, and food storage boxes. No pit toilet or privy exists so be prepared to dispose of waste properly. Note: Surface water is unsafe. Water from natural sources must be purified by boiling or filtering and disinfecting.
Natural Features
Basin Cove was a thriving community of over 50 families from 1863 to 1916. Two stalled tropic storms dumped 22.2 inches of rain during a 3-day period in 1916, causing massive mudslides that wiped out all but 1 and half homes. Remnants of homesites and graves are scattered throughout the area. The 3.5-mile Caudill Cabin trail leads the only existing cabin.
The campground is situated among a mixed hardwood and conifer forest with multiple creeks.
Special Parkway water regulations apply in Basin Cove. Fishing
Black Bears inhabit the 6,000 plus acres of public land.
Contact Info
For facility specific information, please call (828) 276-2300.
Nearby Attractions
Stone Mountain State Park Stone Mountain State Park
Alleghany County Alleghany County
Wilkes County Wilkes County
New River New River
Amenities
Phone: 828-276-2300
Is Basin Cove Backcountry Camping fully booked?
A campground showing no availability is almost never full for good. People cancel — plans change, weather turns, someone books three weekends and keeps one — and the site goes straight back into the booking system, usually without warning and often at odd hours. The reason sold-out campgrounds feel impossible is not that sites never free up; it is that nobody is watching at the moment they do.
CampHawk watches Basin Cove Backcountry Camping in Asheville, NC for you. We recheck it every 15 seconds, around the clock, and the moment a site opens we send a text, an email and a push notification — and on Recreation.gov we can put the site straight into your cart, so it is held while you get to your phone.
Searching is free and needs no account — the calendar above is live right now. Watching Basin Cove Backcountry Camping for cancellations is the paid part.