Our little family packed up our car with our tent and drove up to the Rocky Mountain Campground in Rome, GA for a couple of days of fun in the wilderness.
Some of our friends live near Rome, and had told us about this little gem. We were so excited to join them for a few nights of camping! Campfire, smores, cinnamon rolls roasted on the fire,fresh air and good friends; you can count us in for that!
The Rocky Mountain Campground is located at
4054 Big Texas Valley Rd., NW Rome, Georgia 30165
The Rocky Mountain Recreation Area is 5,000 acres located in northern Floyd County. It is owned by the Oglethorpe Power Cooperation and is managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. It is located near the Chattahoochee National Forest. There are two fishing lakes spanning over 500 acres! They allow fishing boats in the lakes and have boat ramps. We could fish while at our camping area, but the kids quickly lost interest so that didn’t last long.
Camping at Rocky Mountain Campground
There are 36 sites with a table, grill, 50 amp electrical and water hook ups. The sewage dumping area is located near the entrance/exit of the campground. These sites are $30 per night (as of September 2022). There are tent sites that are $12 per night but do not have the water or power on their site. The tent sites you will also have to walk your things in a little way as you can’t pull into your site as you can with the RV areas. We opted for the RV pads. I am glad we did. It is just a few dollars to have water and power readily available. And to be close to our car if it decided to start raining.
Everyone is required to purchase a daily pass for $5 for each vehicle, even when camping. If you are camping the $5 pass will work for the entire stay.
There are some pull-through spots for your RV, but those aren’t immediately adjacent to the lake. The pull-through spots also went pretty quickly. There are two spots that are double spots. They have 2 tables, 2 grills and 2 parking pads with 2 hook-ups. These spots are $60. But look perfect if two families are meeting up to camp.
The gates for the campground close at 10PM and you will not be allowed in. Check-Out is at noon.
Making camping reservations
Campground reservations can be made a few ways. You can use the Go Outdoors Georgia app. You can use the link on Rocky Mountain Recreation and Public Fishing Area Website. Or by calling 1-800-366-2661. You have only recently been able to make reservations as it was on a first come basis I was happy to see this change.
We arrived on a Thursday as it was what fit our and our friends schedules. By Thursday night many of the sites were full. By the lake all of them were full before night fall. Many campers were pulled in and weren’t actually camping until Friday night. I am glad we were able to get close to the lake. I was a little leery at first as we had kids, but there was enough distance between us and the lake that it wasn’t ever a problem.
There is a swimming area/beach located next to the camp ground and it was awesome. The water was cold, so we didn’t get much swim time while we were there. I am sure during the warmer days of the year the beach is full of people cooling off while enjoying the beautiful mountain view. There is a small playground between the beach area and the campground. Our kids would likely have stayed here the entire time we were camping if we wouldn’t have bribed them away with smores.
The campground has a bathroom/shower house located on top of the hill. This is incredibly important for us tent campers! There are 2 showers inside and 3 restrooms. With 4 small kids in our group we made numerous trips up the hill. I was grateful the restrooms and showers were in such a clean condition.
There are hiking trails located nearby. We didn’t get to try any trails out as we were only there a couple of days and as I said before we were traveling with four kids. Sure our kids have the energy to outdo us on a regular day getting them to all put forth their energy onto the trail is an entirely different animal.
We were able to camp for two nights. On our first night all the adults in our group were scared awake at about 2am with a loud sound coming from on top of the hill. We all discussed it and wondered what it was. We heard it again on the second night. The next day we asked a camp ground worker and he told us it was the reversing of the pumps. This intrigued me to do a little more research on what exactly “reversing the pumps” meant.
Wouldn’t you know, good ole Wikipedia helped me out!
As a pumped-storage power plant, it uses two reservoirs to produce electricity and store energy. The upper reservoir stores water (energy) for periods when electricity demand is high. During these periods, water from the upper reservoir is released down to the power plant to produce hydroelectricity. Water from the power plant is then discharged into the lower reservoir. When energy demand is low, usually at night, water is pumped from the lower reservoir back up to the upper reservoir. The upper reservoir can be replenished in as little as 7.2 hours. The same turbine-generators that are used to generate electricity reverse into pumps during pumping mode.
So if you are camping, please note you will get woke up with a loud sound in the dead of night. It is the reversing of the pumps and instead of lying awake for an hour wondering what it was, like we did, you can just fluff your pillow, pull your blankets back up and go back to sleep! The billion dollar project on the hill is just doing its part to keep the green energy going and the folks in the area with power!
While there was no store on site at the camping area or fishing area there is a small trading post located nearby for making sure you have marshmallows and Dr. Pepper.
There is also a wood mill close by. We read and heard that you can go there and get some of their scrap wood for your camp fire. In the video below you will see our kids playing with the wooden blocks. The kids had the most fun playing and building “houses” and towers. It was like a real-life game of Minecraft.
You are welcome to bring in firewood to burn, but they do not allow you to use any of their living vegetation for any reason.
Pets are allowed on a leash.
We loved our camping trip at the Rocky Mountain Campground and can’t wait to come back. Check out the video below to get a glimpse into our camping fun!
Check out some more of our camping adventures!
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Looking forward to getting away, camp & fish. Finally cool enough!
I hope you have a great trip, Darryl!