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Badin Lake Recreation Area

Badin Lake Recreation Area offers swimming, boating, fishing, hunting, hiking trails, equestrian trails, four-wheel drive trails, mountain biking trails & camping opportunities. Please pick up your trash! Trash cans are at all recreation sites.

Camping in Badin Lake Recreation Area

There are 4 developed campgrounds for tents, camping trailers, & RVs with flush toilets and showers & 1 tent only campground within the Badin Lake Recreation Area. For people that want electricity, flush toilets, showers & a dump station there are 2 campgrounds with these amenities. Arrowhead Campground has 48 sites for the public to use with electrical hookups at sites 12-45. These sites have 50 amp, 30 amp & 110 volt outlets. Sites 1-11 & 46-50 do not have power.  Canebrake Horse Camp has 28 sites available to the public. All sites have electrical hookups with 50 amp, 30 amp & 110 volt outlets. This campground has amenities for horse use but is not exclusive to horseback riders. Some of these horse amenities are a horse washing station, hitching posts, tack tables & direct access to the trails. 

Badin Lake Campground offers 34 sites for tent, camping trailer or RV camping. There are several campsites on the lakeshore of Badin Lake, which can be accessed via boat, canoe, or kayak.  This campground offers flush toilets, showers & drinking water hydrants. There is no electricity and no dump station at this campground. Badin Lake Group Camp offers 3 sites for up to 50 people each. There are flush toilets, vault toilets, showers & 3 drinking water hydrants. There are no electrical hookups and there is no dump station.  This campground is available by reservation only. To make reservations for any of the above listed campgrounds please call Recreation.Gov at 877-444-6777; TDD: 877-833-6777; International: 518-885-3639; or go to their website: www.recreation.gov.

The last campground in the Badin Lake Recreation Area is called Uwharrie Hunt Camp. This campground is rustic & it has 8 tent only campsites that can be accessed by a very short walk from the parking lot.  There are 2 vault toilets & drinking water hydrants.  Each site has a tent pad, picnic table, fire ring, grill, & lantern post. 

Recreating in the Badin Lake Recreation Area

The Badin Lake Recreation Area offers a myriad of recreational opportunities. There are 17 miles of Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) or motorized trails available for dirt bikes, ATVs, and full-sized 4-WD vehicles with the purchase of a trail pass.  Primitive camping or dispersed camping can be done along the trails & at the Art Lilley Campground that is located in the Badin Lake OHV Trail Complex. 

Additionally, there are approximately 40 miles of non-motorized trails available for horseback riding, mountain biking, and hiking. These trails range from easy to difficult as they traverse beautifully wooded areas, rocky outcrops, follow the Uwharrie River & many of its tributaries.   

The Cove Boat Launch is located on Cove Road near Arrowhead Campground & offers access to Badin Lake for trailered boats. There is a vault toilet. There are 2 day use areas for picnicking & fishing. The King's Mt. Point Day Use Area offers 34 picnic sites, a picnic pavilion, 4 accessible fishing piers and 4 vault toilets & 2 flush toilets. Holt's Picnic Area is more rustic with a vault toilet, fishing from the shore, grills & picnic tables available.

Activities