Steele Creek Park

Love this campground!! I enjoyed spending the last 4 months there. It has been an enjoyable experience for my grandchildren. They have enjoyed all the weekend activities that are provided by Steele Creek staff. very friendly staff. Very clean. Friendly campers have made this an enjoyable summer! Already planning for next year!!


Janelle McDougal

I feel I need to share about this place to offer a more fair and balanced view than another reviewer. Once a year in the summer, my husband's family meets at Steele Creek Campground for a day of swimming, eating, and family togetherness. My father-in-law has been coming here since he was young, and my husband and his brothers and sisters came here a lot during their childhood. It's nestled in the gorgeous Blue Ridge mountains and the temperature is perfect during the hot southern summers. The creek water is mountain cold!

The park is very clean, although the smaller restrooms near the creek desperately need updating. The pool isn't quite so cold, so the kids like to switch back and forth between that and the creek. There's a big, winding tube slide built into the mountain, which does cost extra. There are two diving boards on the deep part of the creek, and also a putt putt course that looks well kept.

This place has a wonderful family atmosphere. The families laugh together and people make friends.

My family has not camped here, but we have strolled through the camping areas to check it out. There are a lot of RVs, lots of pop up campers, and a few tents. Lots of kids with bicycles. I grew up camping - mostly at Table Rock - and my siblings and I loved riding our bikes through the campgrounds. And in a park like this you can feel comfortable letting them.

Basically, if you want WILDERNESS camping, you're not going to find it at a *campground* in the summer in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Duh! Giving a 1 star review over seeing RVs and children riding bikes and men without shirts on is unfair and rather...well, snobby and prima donna-ish...for lack of a better word. Steele Creek is a wonderful campground if you know anything about campgrounds and know what to expect in-season.

Ok, I would like to preface this review by stating that we came here for tent camping. If you have an RV, I have no idea what sort of experience is expected at an RV resort, and likely never will, so feel free to disregard this. If you are looking for somewhere with tons of fellow RV patrons and a creek to stick your feet in, this might be your place.

We ended up at Steele Creek Park for Memorial Day weekend because all of the state parks were completely booked. We were very happy to find somewhere relatively near Lake James (25-30 minutes.) Driving to this place, I was thinking how it was so beautiful out in the country and there were hardly any people on the road so it was going to be nice. I pulled into the drive leading in here and what I saw made me say some choice words. Not what I was expecting. This is clearly a VERY popular area for people with RVs. You drive in and there is smoke and RVs and children on bikes and country folk as far as the eye can see. When I payed my $25 for tent camping I was asked "you know where you're going, right?" by the man giving me my change.... and truthfully I had no idea where a tent would even possibly fit in all of this. When I had called earlier I was told that some "primitive" sites were available farther away from everything, so I asked to be directed there. Well, what they meant by primitive, as far as I can tell, was just that the site was lacking a fire ring... not that it was any sort of typical tent site (and by that I mean a tree or two, not directly next to all the RVs, with some degree of privacy.) So, I drove through to find my spot, dodging children, dogs, shirtless men holding cozies and playing cornhole, etc etc. I finally got to the back corner and there was one tent site on the bend of the creek with no RVs next to it.... I parked my car and claimed that spot. It ended up being... ok. Half of our site was on a pile of dirt that I think may have been an attempt at some sort of beach but really just smelled horribly like manure. We pulled out picnic table away from the manure smelling dirt, made a "privacy wall" with our two cars, and settled in. Through the night, we had quite a few people cutting through our camp site to get to the water, people fishing, and even some random people asking "is that a real tent!?" and "how do you fit in that tiny thing?" We made due and were gone as soon as possible in the morning (along with all the other unfortunate people who decided to come camping here in a tent).


To at least be somewhat positive, I would like to say that if this place were not so horribly overcrowded, and if there were way less RVs, this would really be a beautiful area to camp. Maybe on a non-holiday weekend, or during off season, this would be more than tolerable. I do not think we will personally be testing that theory, however.

It's a nice campground however the pool isn't clean and its closes at 5 the staff isn't friendly the rv spots are to close together but all and all it ain't real bad .