# Indian Boundary Campground, Cherohala Skyway



## GoVols (Oct 7, 2005)

We enjoyed a wonderful 5 days of camping at Indian Boundary Campground, a US Forest Service facility approximately 16 miles east of Tellico Plains, TN, off the Cherohala Skyway. The Cherohala is a beautiful 40 mile mountaintop road completed in 1996 that connects Tellico Plains, TN to Robbinsville, NC. You leave Tellico Plains at around 900 ft. in elevation, and ascend to 5400 ft. before descending into Robbinsville, with incredible views along every mile of the road.

I would highly recommend Indian Boundary CG. It is a very nice, heavily wooded campground, with 50/30/20 amp service at each site. Community water spigots though, and no sewer at the sites, so be advised. Bath houses were super clean and had hot showers. The CG is adjacent to a beautiful 100 acre lake that has several fishing piers, a swimming beach and a 3.6 mile trail around the lake for hiking/biking. The lake allows non-motorized boats and has a launching ramp if needed.

The recreation.gov reservations site has a stern warning about camping vehicles over 26 ft. in length being financially responsible for damages due to the narrow nature of the campground road. Don't let this deter you from staying here! I wasn't sure what to expect, but after being there, yes the road is narrow as CG roads go, and several of the sites had awkward angles of entry. Generally the reservations site will tell you that a particular site is better suited to tent or popup campers, and you should heed that warning! The sites however, were generally very deep and well spaced apart. There were many fivers in the 36 foot range, as well as a few 40 foot Class A coaches. The reservations site isn't very helpful with regards to site length. All of the sites seem to list "26 foot" as the maximum length, but this doesn't represent the actual length of the camping sites! This CG had some of the deepest sites I have ever seen; I bet some of them were 70-80 foot deep!

Here is a link to some pictures I have posted from our trip in my member album: Indian Boundary & Cherohala Pictures

As you can see, the fall colors were just incredible last week in the higher elevations:


----------



## campingnut18 (Mar 11, 2004)

Awesome. Thanks for sharing. Great pictures. We were just at Vogel in Blairsville, GA last weekend and the trees hadn't changed that much just yet but I'm sure that the elevation makes all the difference. Ok tree color, hold on until we get to Gatlinburg next week for the rally. It's almost surreal.

Does the CG take reservations or are they first come, first serve only? We really should try this one especially since my parents live on Lake Santeetlah in Robbinsville (it's just hard to commit to camping there when there is a house).

C-


----------



## GoVols (Oct 7, 2005)

campingnut18 said:


> Ok tree color, hold on until we get to Gatlinburg next week for the rally. It's almost surreal.


I'm afraid the effects of the lingering drought in this area will hurt the tree colors, despite what we saw along the Cherohala last Friday. The trees in the lower elevations are a muted brownish yellow color. The color is even gone now from the higher elevations after the rains and winds from last Friday and Saturday. I was amazed at the difference after the windy Saturday we had, which knocked down most of the colorful leaves in the higher elevations. I drove back up the road on Sunday morning to snap some pictures since it was beautiful clear day, but the trees that were so pretty on Friday were now mostly bare of their leaves!


----------

