Reserve this site on Reserve America, Tate’s Hell State Forest High Bluff Primitive Campsites. When you get to your campsite, find the closest point for cell connection. If you call 911 give 379 Pidcock Road, Tate’s Hell State Forest, as your address, GPS 29.81976 ,-84.82574. First responders will not know how to get your by campsite only. Reserve America does not give you this information on your confirmation.
This is the view you will get if you drive in.
We love to paddle Cash Creek and if we take one branch it will take us past this campsite. We paddle our way between the abandoned pilings in tannin colored water. When the water is higher, these pilings, concealed under brown water, can catch your boat and hold it fast, risking capsize. We earn the right to this warning from experience.
It’a always nice to see someone enjoying this site. It’s a huge campsite like most of the sites in Tate’s Hell and is perfect for paddlers who love to paddle the tributaries which empty into the Apalachicola River.
If we could access it easily from the water (and it could be done when the water level is up — easier in a canoe than a kayak), this would be a perfect place to stop for lunch.
There is a drop from the banks or thick mud along the rush-growing slough and the sand ledge is not substantial enough to hold a dismounting paddler. The river drops sharply on the edge of this site.
This would make an ideal full moon campsite. Just look at the view one gets from the site.
Looking upriver.
And, looking downriver.
On the road to the campground are several slash pine trees with the customary white band painted around their trunks — indicators of red cockaded woodpecker nests. We noticed that these had PVC pipes inserted in the hole. We didn’t see any activity in them, but wouldn’t it be great to have as neighbors these endangered birds (even if they might be noisy).
Tate’s Hell forests are mostly slash pines, not long leaf, which is the customary home of red cockaded woodpeckers. But we have seen one natural bored nest off Trout Creek in slash pine.
In the fall the estuary is a favorite spot for migrating birds.
We have never camped here, but this is one site we would like to try one day and figure out how one can more easily put-in and take-out kayaks.
There are three small campsites at the Cash Creek Landing (one is on a first come basis and not reservable), but this is a more desirable a camp site unless one prefers lots of company. There is more traffic at the Cash Creek Landing site from fishermen launching their boats to go into the estuaries and then to the Apalachicola River and drive in and turn around cars (particularly on the weekends). The Cash Creek Landing is a Day Use area with covered shelters over picnic tables.
This is a perfect site for paddlers who wish to paddle the area creeks and rivers, totally isolated even from the dispersed camping one finds in Tates Hell State Forest. We have been told by fishermen that fishing here is good. A young fisherman who lived near the Suwanee River camped here. We saw him in his fishing kayak on the New River at Gully Branch Road landing. He had no luck on Gully Branch, after a day of fishing, but he regaled us with stories about the fish he caught the day before on Cash creek.
The photos were taken when the tide was outgoing. Water levels will vary.
If you camp(ed) here, please comment in the box provided at the end of this post.