The Blue Ridge Mountains offer beautiful settings for memorable camping experiences.
But some of today’s campground operators offer not only scenic places to camp, but plenty of manmade enticements to keep families entertained. This is particularly true at the Jellystone Park Camp-Resort in Bostic, North Carolina, which opened in 2018 on what was previously the site of a Girl Scouts camp.
Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Northgate Resorts has continually improved this forested, 550-acre resort, packing it with new attractions each year.
These enticements include a swimming pool with a swim-up bar and spa-like warming tubs and, for the kids, a multilevel water playground with 165-foot-long water slides, kiddie water slides, water blasters and water cannons, as well as a “hydrostorm bucket” that periodically dumps 750 gallons of water on whomever happens to be standing beneath it.
The park also has a 12-acre lake with a floating obstacle course and a zipline that guests can use to zoom into the lake from a nearby tower. Canoe, kayak, standup paddleboard, and pedal boat rentals are also available.
The park’s newest attraction, which opened last year, is its “Blue Ridge Mountain Coaster,” a unique type of gravity-powered roller coaster with nearly a mile of track.
“This is a coaster that is fully controlled by the guest that rides it,” General Manager Kendall Slowe told Go RVing, noting that guests can reach speeds of up to 27 miles per hour as they coast down the mountain. “We did over 14,000 rides last year,” he said, adding that the coaster is one of the resort’s most popular attractions.
Other attractions include a laser tag game, a rock-climbing wall, Gaga ball, a gem mining sluice, a giant chess game, and an 18-hole miniature golf course. There’s also jumping pads and jumping pillows as well as volleyball, basketball, pickleball, and tennis courts. The park also offers three hiking trails, each of which are a mile long.
Improvements this year include the installation of a disc golf course, which will be available when the park opens March 22.
All these attractions, of course, are complemented by organized activities and themed weekends with Yogi Bear, Boo Boo, Cindy Bear and Ranger Smith.
New weekend themes and activities are introduced each year, so families can look forward to new experiences in addition to the most popular ones that take place every year.
New activities this year include a hot pepper eating contest over Cinco de Mayo weekend, which also features live entertainment.
Two “Color Craze Weekends” are planned for May 10-12 and 17-19 with 5K color runs, glow-in-the-dark dance parties and “sip ’n paint” activities.
A summer “Mess Fest” is planned for June 7-20 with daily foam parties, chocolate covered slip ’n slides, and food fights.
The park is also planning six consecutive Halloween-themed weekends beginning September 20. Activities will include campsite and golf cart decorating, a golf cart parade, costume contests, a magic pumpkin patch, trick or treating, haunted “Hey, Hey” rides, and haunted trails.
The Jellystone Park Camp-Resort in Bostic has 346 campsites, including RV sites, furnished park model cabins, tree houses and other rental accommodations. The park also has several food and beverage options, including a coffee bar; the Creekside Café, which features wood oven pizzas, burgers, wraps, and homemade ice cream; the Scouts’ Table restaurant, a full-service restaurant; and the Blue Ridge Tavern, which serves beer, wine, and spirits. Click here for more information and daily activities and themed weekends throughout the 2024 camping season.
