Cardinal MountainDirections & arrival
Read this before you rely on your phone. GPS handles most of the way here and then gets creative at the end. The last stretch is a mountain road.
The route
From Franklin, roughly 8 minutes.
- Patton Road — follow it out of town.
- Potts Branch — turn and continue.
- Turkey Pen Road — turn here. The road narrows.
- Stay left at the split. This is the one people get wrong.
- Look for the green gate. The sign at the road still reads “Bear Paw Ridge” — our own signs are going up shortly. The green gate is the thing to watch for either way.
If you pass the green gate, you’ve gone too far.
What the road is like
The main road up the mountain is paved, apart from one short flat stretch that didn’t need it, and the corners are cut wide. Driving up is not the hard part. Take it at 7 mph, which is our posted limit and also just the sensible speed.
What sets the size limits is the room to turn around once you reach a site. A longer vehicle can generally get in and out, but it may take several back-and-forth moves and on some sites it would be close. The lengths we list are the ones we’re confident about.
Above site 6 the road forks — right for sites 7 through 10, left for 11 through 17. Both branches are paved, apart from one short flat stretch we left as it was, and both stay the same width the whole way.
Sites 1, 5 and 6 take vehicles up to 25 feet, with wide spots on the main road nearby for a K-turn. Sites 2 and 3 take the same 25 feet, but you’ll reverse up a paved grade to get in. Sites 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 are good to 20 feet, 16 and 17 to 18, and 7 and 15 take cars and small trucks only.
Length isn’t the whole story — wheelbase and turning circle matter just as much up here. If you’re near the limit, ask us before you book.
Arriving at night? It gets very dark up here. Come with a headlamp within reach, not packed at the bottom of a bag.
Finding your site
Once you’re through the gate, follow the numbers and arrows. Each site is marked with its number, and arrows at the junctions point the way. The roads themselves aren’t signed yet, so go by your site number rather than looking for a street name.
Know your number before you arrive — it’s on your booking, it’s how you find your way in the dark, and it’s what you give a 911 dispatcher if you ever need one.
Cell service
There’s 5G on the mountain, so your phone should work and you can be reached. We don’t offer guest WiFi — with signal this good, most people don’t need it. If you’re working remotely for a few days, this is a workable place to do it.
An on-site manager lives here year-round. If something goes wrong, there’s a person here.