Hawk Mountain Campsites

[wren again]

I would appreciate information about the Hawk Mountain Campsites; water? distance to Hawk Mountain Shelter? Thank you!

[soumodeler]

They are just south of Hawk Mountain shelter. There is a water source.

[bstiffler]

Are those new this year there was one campsite the sign was so new, you could still smell the sawdust.

[Turk6177]

I believe the water source is close by down a trail off to the right (as you look at it) of the shelter. As I recall, there are a ton of tenting areas around the shelter.

[wren again]

Thank you!

[-Rush-]

The water source is a creek downhill about .2 from the shelter. There are a ton of places for tents around the shelter, and there are several at the shelter's blue blaze.

[map man]

The new complex of tent-sites is about a half mile south of the Hawk Mountain Shelter site. As you take the campsite trail downhill there are 30 numbered tent-sites on either side of the trail (each tent-site has room for one tent). There is one privy part way down the trail. There are also four or five large animal-proof food storage bins (with signs on them reminding people not to leave their garbage in them) spread out fairly evenly along the trail as you walk downhill. The reliable water source is at the very end of the trail. There are no communal picnic tables or fire rings at this site. When I saw it last month it took me about 20 minutes to hike all the way down to the water source, fill a water bottle, and then hike back up to the AT, so I'm guessing that the "tenting trail" extends for at least a third of a mile. It is very well done, and took a lot of volunteer work to construct, including help from the military unit that uses that area for exercises.

I talked to a ridge runner who had spent the night at the Hawk Mountain Shelter and he told me that there is still some decision making that the ATC and Georgia AT Club are going to be doing on the fate of the Hawk Mountain Shelter area: whether to leave the shelter and tent-sites around it as is, to leave the shelter but close all the tent-sites (to let the landscape heal and go back to a more natural state) or to close shelter and tent-sites (this info is a month-and-a-half old so it's possible a decision has been made by now).