By:
Submission
This recreation area is part of Center Hill Lake
Located 20 miles north of Smithville, 20 miles west of Cookeville and 60 miles east of Nashville. From I-40, take exit 268 at State Hwy. 96 and Center Hill Lake.
We got a primitive site for our tent for a night. Very beautiful forest with access to see the sun go down over the lake. Don't rent a primitive site if you are movement impaired as they're work to get to, it's basically on a steep incline with no modern pathways. Bathroom access was also work but doable. The other sites looked well maintained and nice. Overall nice price and awesome for a night up in Tennessee foothills.
This review is not for the park, but for the Merritt Ridge Trail within the park. This trail is 8.4 miles round trip from the parking area. The initial trail is a nice walk, but once you get to the connector trail, then to Merritt Ridge, it becomes an obstacle course, navigating through and around fallen trees. At times, getting around the debris can get you off course. I had to use my phone map app to get us back to the trail. Once even using a compass to reorient our path. The trails are well marked, but getting around the trees can make finding those markers difficult. This trail has been seriously neglected and is no longer safe for the average hiker. It took us over 6 hours to hike a trail that once was my favorite place to go.
Edger Evins is one of our favorite campgrounds. We only came for over night this time. Road off of I-40 is two lane. Not bad. It leads to the Caney Fork Canoe Rental, but double check me on the name. When you get to the park entrance my new Garmin said it could not verify the ability to travel with our RV in this location. We did not have any troubles and in my pictures you'll see there were bigger rigs than our Class A Vegas 27ft, 11 high. I did see some low wires crossing the road in the park, so I'd check before I brought something in that is extra tall. The sites are back in on deck, so they are all flat. Some back up to the water. The road grade was near 10% in some spots. We had water and Electric, and the dump is as you are leaving. Camp store, Visitor Center, Integrative Center, During Summer Season the Park Marina has a restaurant, playground and store. Lots of Cabins, boat docks. We are planning to come back real soon for a three day weekend. Bring your boat, lots of fishing on this upper lake. The customer service at the visitor center are really helpful. Has a fire ring and grille up front near the road, enough room for chairs with a view. Of course they have bath houses. I know I probably missed some of the good stuff, but hope this helps. Thanks Edgar Evins for the lovely stay.
I think this place has the potential to be really nice. We were very excited to stay here and impressed the first couple minutes we were here but things kinda went down hill after that. We noticed our cabin wasn’t the cleanest. The floors were gritty and I couldn’t even tell if the sheets were washed. We found someone else’s dog poop under the beds and mold growing all over the kitchen. There’s no cleaning supplies so bring your own, no paper towels, you get 4 “clean up” towels that are stained and dirty. If these few things are fixed we would actually stay here again. Outside was taken care of, it was quiet and like I said has potential to be great if the cleaning department did a more thorough job and someone took care of the mold.
We loved our visit! We stayed at a primitive site and it was more work to get to than I thought it would be, but the view of the lake was worth it! Some of the car camping spots have nice views too though. So many scenic places for a picnic. It’s very kid friendly, there’s a storybook trail, the tower to climb, a playground, an interpretive center, and dock for them to splash at. I probably wouldn’t plan on them doing much though if they’re younger than 5. There’s a pool Too when the weather is warmer. I wish they rented paddle boards or canoes out of the park, but next time we’ll plan better. The cabins aren’t what we expected. We had a friend who stayed in those. They’re like townhomes.
