Camping: The mere thought brings fear to some people, and joy to others. All without even leaving the house. Not content to just think about it, our family actually went camping this weekend, so we visited Arrowhead Campground near Troy, North Carolina, located in the Uwharrie National Forest.
Troy is a small town, and with a slogan like Gateway to the Uwharries, you probably aren’t missing much. But there are loads of outdoor activities in the area. Several horse camps occupy the road to the Badin Lake recreation area, and more than one campground is there too. Arrowhead Campground is about in the middle of the area.
It seems from our experience that many of the visitors to the area are there for the off-roading opportunities. And there seemed to be many. We even took a couple trails ourselves. Be warned that this means lots of noise into the night and early the next morning. There’s also a firing range that’s not far away, and the people using it seem to get up awfully early.
The campground itself isn’t bad. The bathhouse is quite impressive looking, but wasn’t kept clean at all. Perhaps they service it Friday sometime, then don’t come back for a while. When we left Sunday morning, it was horrible. No toilet paper in either side that wasn’t wet and lying on the floor, little soap, lots of trash.
We found the campsites to be very nice. Plenty of room, often for two tents, and both a fire pit and a grill were installed in ours. We didn’t use the grill, but it was there nonetheless. A picnic table rounded out the offerings, which gave us a nice place to stack our stuff. If nothing else, we managed to eat plenty while we were gone!
Comments
8 responses to “Uwharrie National Forest”
Rob you are missing the point. Besides you cannot hunt on Sundays everywhere in Michigan.
Also I just looked it up and North Carolina surpassed Michigan by at least 10,000 deer for 2008 annual harvest. Plus think of all the deer clubs that don’t even report deer harvested. North Carolina is a sportsman state like Michigan with both cities and backwoods. They are different because Michigan is obviously colder and the deer grow bigger. There is much more grouse hunting and other small game hunting in North Carolina than Michigan and hunting is going down hill in Michigan because they are selling off all the public hunting land because they are broke.
Don’t knock hunting in North Carolina just because you also hunted in Michigan.
Its different here and there are pluses and minuses to both. The Birkhead is a great place to get away from it all for a while and primitive camp and hunt. Its beautiful there and full of wild game if you look. I love overnight hunt camping with my son. We always find great pre used campsites with rocks made into fire rings and plenty of nearby firewood. We enjoy the solitude and it even gets a little spooky at night. Unless you go to Alaska you will run into people eventually.
If you think Uwharrie has good hunting, then you haven’t experienced good hunting. Michigan blows away NC hunting…and a comparison of license sales can prove it. Michigan hunters harvest more deer in a two-week gun season than NC hunters bag in their long open season. I’ve hunted in both states. Michigan has far more public land available for hunting, grouse and ducks abound (and, no, we don’t throw them out of towers), the deer actually get big, way more rabbit and squirrel, turkey hunting is as good or better, and you can hunt all weekend (no lame-ass Sunday ban). Don’t get me wrong…I like Uwharrie. But saying the hunting is great there is a bald-faced lie…or a very ignorant opinion.
I have spent 18 years going to the Uwharries to camp, fish, hike, sunbathe, 4wheeling and enjoy the great out doors. It is the best place I can think of going. I have never had a bad time out there.It was great. There are deer, squrril, fox, bobcat and rattle snakes.If you go to see the animals you need to camp away from the swimming or atv areas. They are there.
You do not know what you are talking about. If you would have investigated further there might have been some substance to your post. So shallow to cut down this area. I admit it is not for narrow-minded instant gratification persons as yourselves. It takes some time and patience to enjoy. Maybe you should go to on the east side of NC109 to near Ophir, refer to maps. There would not be as much noise. There are approximately 2.5 deer/square mile, very thick. I have seen more turkey around there than anywhere else I have been in this state. There are around 52,000 acres and let’s see, you covered maybe 10-30 acres, please, give me a break with your pessimistic attitude. Open your eyes to what is around you or stay home. Do not cut down such a nice area with your ignorance.
I’m sorry you had such a bad time at my friend and I’s playground. This is a place where we go on the weekend to unwind. We absolutely love riding ATV’s on the trails in which this place primarily caters to. It was probably me or one of my buddies making all the noise. So if you ever go again bring some ear protection because we will probably be there gittin it done.
We purchased an RV. Gas prices soared.
After 2 quick trips to the big RV resorts in the south part of Myrtle Beach, it was my turn to pick a destination. As I’m pale to the point of transparency, Myrtle Beach was not on my list at all. I like trees, quiet, wildlife, serenity. Since we hadn’t the fuel resources (cash) to make it all the way to western NC or southwestern VA where we usually go, I picked the Uwharries and we got a place at Arrowhead.
Our campsite was great! No complaints there at all. So we set out for a hike. The problems began there. There were no trail maps. Curt drove all the way back to Biscoe looking for places with maps. He finally came back with a map…one that outlined all the equestrian and ATV/OHV trails, but it didn’t have details on foot trails and things a hiker might see on the way, like creeks and bridges and such. Why didn’t we print off all this great info before we left? Well, all national parks have maps, don’t they? Not this one. We found Badin Lake trail since it was right out our back door. But we didn’t know where it led or what we’d see. We found Denson’s Creek trail back at the National Forest Headquarters. Nice enough. We went all the way up to the Birkhead Wilderness and found Hannah’s Creek Trail. The creek was a stagnent pool with not even a trickle down the rocky creek bed. We went over to Morrow Mountain and the one map they had there had more info than anything else we found.
Since we were on a lake, we took swim suits. The kids love the water. There was no map which indicated there was a safe swimming area. All the map showed was the boat ramps.
And yes, the firing range was going full clip, even on Sunday morning.
All-in-all, we drove 170 miles to park. Everything else was boring. And all those “No Hunting” signs? Don’t worry about taking your guns. We didn’t see one deer…no turkeys…no eagles…no rabbits.
Well, Brandon, as you may be able to tell by reading the content of this entry, there were a number of reasons why I said what I did. Perhaps you should re-read it?
uwarrie is a nice place and it is kept in good shape i dont know why you said that it wasnt