The Cherohala Mountain Trails is a simple and nice campground.  It does have breakfast and dinners available on Fri/Sat/Sunday, and it is a 10 minute ride to Tellico for the food nearby.  There is a wonderful bakery/deli in town - and good food and ice cream at the little burger stand along the creek going up to the Skyway.
https://cmtrails.com/

Tellico Plains is a couple hours closer to me (and MM) than it is to go over to Robbinsville/Deals Gap - however it seems most of the good riding requires that we ride the Cherohala Skyway to get to the areas we like to ride over by Deals Gap.  This adds a couple of hours of commuting on the Skyway each morning and then back at night.  My neighbor Bruce and I stayed there last summer for a couple of days - riding the Skyway home at night can get pretty cold and windy.   There are a few good rides around Tellico Plains - the loop over the Skyway to Deals Gap, then the Dragon and then 72 over to 411 and then south on 360 is a nice ride for a day.  Tellico Plains is on the west side of the mountains - so you need to ride east for an hour or more to get into the fun roads.

I believe the most reasonable and comfortable thing to do is camp at the Iron Horse and just ride up to Deals Gap for the races.

Staying at Deals Gap is no longer attractive to me.  It was good 12 years ago when I first went - it has gradually gotten too popular and hectic....and expensive.  I used to be able to park my car/trailer in their lot and sleep in the trailer and pay the camping price - now it is $40 a night to park.  The rooms are still somewhat reasonable - but you are always at the risk of foul weather and you have to cancel 48 hours in advance.  They don't list the tent camping rate on their website - it is pretty reasonable if you ride in on a motorcycle.  Car/trailer parking is free if you stay in a room.

Last year Stewmills and I camped at the Iron Horse and just rode up to Deals Gap and back to the Iron Horse after the races were over around 10PM.  The ride back is on Route 28 and takes about 20 minutes....it wasn't too scary in the dark.  The restaurant was closed and we bought a drink and some snacks before the store closed at 8PM - for better snacking we might want to pack food/drink before we get to the races.

My neighbor Bruce can come - so at this point it looks like it will be Stewmills, MMRanch, Bruce and Dave.

We can use one campsite and tent - but it is likely Bruce and I will sleep in the enclosed trailer out in the parking lot if it is not too hot.  They do have a few tent sites with electric that you could plug in a fan - but unfortunately those spots are out in the sun and not shaded by trees (once the sun goes down I guess the fan would work to keep the tent cooler).

MMRanch wrote on 07/05/24 at 21:53:43:


Iron Horse charges $35.99 for a tent with 1 person and $8 additional for every additional person in the tent.

I have a 10'x10' tent that attaches to the bottom of my pop up canopy.  I can bring that if Stew doesn't have anything bigger.