Pickett CCC Memorial State Park Campground

Nice small , historical campground/state park. One of the CCC built areas. 
Small circle campground with several pull through sites and electric or primitive to choose from. Quiet, at least when we visited. 
Water to kayak or swim in. A swing bridge across the water to the upper trail. The ladder trailhead is in the upper campground. Very technical, and challenging trail. This would be a good State Park to visit with younger children. 


Old meets new

**PICKETT STATE RUSTIC PARK** is located adjacent to Scott State Forest, Big South Fork River, Tn and below Daniel Boone National Forest, Ky.

The Campground is my favorite type, small. You can easily feel like your camping in the 50's with all the modern conveniences. The structures in the park were built back in the day, with big rocks and pride in construction.

The campground has several sites without electricity but it doesn't take away from the charm, just come prepared with alternate power sources.

There is a small lake/pond down the hill with water craft rentals and a suspension bridge leading over to an overlook and interesting trail with many cool sites to see. There are several sites to see within the park, within short distance walk.

Rustic and country

Popular for it's clear skys for star gazing.   This campsite offers cabins and tent/RV camping.  This is a perfect site for those who like to take short , but scenic hikes.  

Beautiful Nights

This is a great campground that offers a lot of amenities, including a bath house, fire rings, picnic tables and offers both RV and tent camping. The people in the campground were respectful and there were trailheads leading directly from the campground to the wilderness. Pickett is a great place to visit because it’s an international dark sky, there are beautiful natural bridges and lots of recreation opportunities.

Pickett State Park Campground

Pickett State Park is a great spot to camp if you like peace and quiet, but don’t want to have to backpack in to a spot. Despite the small campground, it was pretty much empty on the first weekend in August when we stayed. It is near the Big South Fork, and Scott State Forest, so there’s lots of great hiking, horseback riding, river recreation, etc. nearby. From other reviews on The Dyrt, I learned the park is excellent for stargazing, and it is true, you will have amazing views at night, we slept in a tent without a rain fly, just so we could see the stars! 

The campground has several sites with electric and some without. We stayed in B1, which did not have electric. All the sites have picnic tables and fire rings, and the ones on the outside of the loops back up to the woods and trails. All the sites are spacious. 

The restrooms were clean, but they must be pretty old. There were some areas in need of tile repair, but it was just a cosmetic issue, so it didn’t bother me. The showers were nice, and everything was clean. 

The campground also has cabins, and those seemed to have more guests than the campground. They have a set of cabins that were connected, like apartments, and they have some larger, freestanding cabins too. They had a group site as well, but I did not go to it. 

The park has a lake with swimming area, and canoe/kayak/paddle board rentals, a swinging bridge, playground, tennis courts, a gigantic picnic area, and several great trails. 

This was a very pleasant find, and we will definitely return! 


Beautiful Night Sky, Quiet Camping

My wife and I happened upon this state park when looking for a last minute substitute for another campsite. We were late arrivals, had no problem finding an open site on a Saturday night in the summer. Plenty of open spots with privacy. This campground offers sites with open space for stargazing and/or sites closer to
the timber with canopy cover. The campground was less than 20% occupied, so plenty of great spots available. Great for hammock camping, electric hookups or tent. Bathhouses were clean. Bathhouse also included laundry. Campground offers a large amount of cabins, some can accommodate larger groups. You can access the lake from This campground including kayak, canoe, and boat rentals. You can also find a swimming beach area next to the rental boats. There are a plethora of trails to hike including a suspension bridge over the river, and a number of geological landmark sites to hike to. We enjoyed our stay. 

Stargazing with privacy

Pickett CCC is recognized as a dark sky park. If you're into astronomy or just enjoy looking up at the stars this is the perfect place. The stars can be enjoyed from just about anywhere but a short drive down the road there's an astronomy field. The campsites on the A loop are spacious. B loop looked pretty cramped in together. There's plenty of short trails and the lake within walking distance of the campground. This makes the campground excellent for kids. The lake has a roped off swimming area and also offers boat rentals. Big South Fork neighbors the park if you're seeking more challenging trails. 

Dark sky park

Hard to get teens to camp with no WiFi, but Pickett had so much to do that we didn’t get done. They cannot wait to go back 😊

Getting Teens to Camp

We stayed for a few days and as a backpacker, the local hikes are some of the best I have ever seen! I would say most of the hikes are moderate, although some say easy. Grandma couldn’t leisurely walk, or scale some of the trails, so you have been warned. But for able bodied persons, the hikes are all doable. There are quite the variety of hike lengths to choose from, from short and squatty, to full day hikes. I’ll submit some of my favorite shots below. 
For RVs - I was towing a 21 ft trailer and my site at the bottom of the hill, which was away from other campers, but the grade was ridiculous! I had 6” of block height to level side to side! I heard other complaints from other longer tongue pullers as well, regarding the difficulty getting into their sites. Most of the sites are small, too close to other campers, or too close to the smell of the privies. But if you are hiking the area, I think the stay could be worth some of the hassle. There is a pull through dump station on the loop. There is electric and water. 
Tent campers - probably have plenty of room to spread out, some with power hookups and the convenience of showers at a central bathhouse. 
Daytime picnics - a beautifully large area to choose from and see. Lots of selections, all of them very well social distanced, family friendly and shaded with trees. Soooo much to see. 

OMG! O

I LOVE Pickett CCC!!  There is so much to do at this park. 
At the lake there’s kayak and canoeing where you actually paddle under a natural bridge. There’s a swimming area , geese and fishing. The rock formations are awesome. 
Then there’s the trails. A suspension bridge, another natural bridge and a cave area. These are easy to moderate trails but can be a little hazardous so watch your step.
The campground....well, not my favorite. No shade, very close sites AND on a hill. It was crowded and a little noisy. No privacy, small and busy. 
There are some nice cabins and some older cabins. Sorta old meets new, cause some of these cabins may have been built by the CCC. There’s a museum on site too. Worth a visit!

Variety

It’s a small but nice well maintained campground. Some of the sites are a little close together but we got one close to the showers but yet far enough away from people. At night it got very quiet and was very peaceful. The best thing is that we were able to see more stars than ever before. They even have a astronomy field for your viewing pleasure. I kinda wish I had taken more photos of the place but we just wanted to enjoy the outdoors with no electronics. Also there isn’t any service inside the campgrounds but the front office does have WiFi if you need it! 

Awesome campground 

If you've never visited this campground, just go ahead and put it on your list. 

I had never visited the area before and didn't know what to expect. It's a small state park close to Big South Fork. 

We stayed in site A21. It's one of the bigger sites and it's off to itself. Probably the only negative I have to say about this campground is that the site wasn't level. I spoke with the friendly staff at the visitor center and she explained that they had recently leveled all the sites, but the rain over the week prior (5.5") had just washed the dirt away. We had friends join us that tent camped in a level spot on the site. So it could totally work for that! The site had water and electric and was close enough to the bathrooms to see it from the site, but not smell it. 

The trails though.... oh my goodness, the trails. We stayed 2 nights, so we dedicated 1 day to Pickett and 1 to Big South Fork. 1 day for each was just not enough. 

On Saturday, it rained off and on until late afternoon. We were aware of the weather and packed our rain gear. We hiked to the natural bridge and it did not disappoint!! From there, we hiked to hazard cave. The Hike had so much to see!!! We did get a little confused thinking that the cave was a Rockhouse (my boyfriend got confused anyway...) so we hiked on. If you have the time, I do suggest hiking on. There's a lot of cool rock walls and formations to see! Once we got back to the parking lot, we crossed the street and hiked to the Indian Rockhouse, which was also amazing!!! We did all of these in just a few hours. After that, we made our way back to camp for dinner. The site had a fire ring with a grill grate as well as a standalone grill. After it got dark, we made our way to the astronomy field. I've never seen so many stars in my life!!!! It was breathtaking!!!

The next day, we made our way to Big South Fork. We hiked to the Needle Arch and Slave Falls on the same trail. Both were spectacular!! That trail was my favorite of the visit and with an the rain from Saturday, the fall had a good flow. From there, we made our way to the Twin Arches trailhead, which is another phenomenal trail. 

I cannot say enough good things about this trip. If you like hiking and seeing awesome things, this is the spot for you!! 

Top 10 TN Campground

The scenery here is gorgeous, the trails are great, but the campground is disappointing.

We booked far enough in advance so that we were able to get a campsite with electric and water. The sites are very unlevel, some are set up so that your door faces the road and others are just on top of each other. Based on the popularity of this park, I was really surprised that the campground was falling apart.

We did not let this put a damper on our trip. I just want to be honest about the condition of camp. We had an excellent time hiking, kayaking and also exploring the Big South Fork. We took advantage of two excellent ranger led programs. The dark sky did not cooperate for us (cloud coverage), but the evening hike to see the glow worms was spectacular! 

Beautiful Park, run down campground

We camped here for 2 nights with our dogs. 
The campground is pretty small but very clean and well maintained. 
The campsites have the usual amenities: a picnic bench, fire ring, and a grill. 
Our campsite had no electricity but a water spigot. 
The bathhouse was clean and the showers had good water pressure. 
There are several trails accessible from the campground. 
It's about a 5 min walk to the visitor center and the little CCC museum. 
They also have a boathouse and rent boats, kayaks, and canoes. It was very scenic to paddle on the lake. 
The natural bridges and rockhouses are absolutely beautiful. The area is know for its geological sights. 
We would absolutely camp here again.
