By:
Submission
Michigan Recreation Passport is required for vehicle entry into state parks and recreation areas, state boat launches, state forest campgrounds and state trail parking lots. The Michigan Recreation Passport does not cover local, county, municipal, or metropolitan parks or recreation areas. Learn more: https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/buy-and-apply/rec-pp
Located on Ford Lake Road.
Great place for rustic camping. Lots of trails and pretty quiet. We were there in May of 2021 and soon discovered a lot of ticks on the first trail loop along the river. By the time we got back to camp we counted close to 200 ticks removed from the 6 of us. If you stayed on the main paths it seemed fine but the tall grass on the less traveled paths is where the ticks were. Still lots of fun, just use caution and wear light colors so the ticks can be spotted easier if they're on you.
Great place to camp and enjoy the outdoors
Really love the elk viewing areas
Clean and some spacious campsites. 6.8 mile Shingle Mill Loop was nice except last mile of swampy bug infested boardwalk.
Great place to camp. Only downside (if you can call it that) is that the campground is right off a county road. That's great for access if you are tent camping out of a two wheel drive car.
However it also means that you will absolutely hear anyone and anything on the road from your camp at all times of day. We did not find that to be a massive deal but I could see it being potentially bothersome at times. The river runs right next to the campground though which is great and shinglemill trail runs through it and on further through the state forest. There are several loops of distances between 3/4 and 11 miles accessable from the campground itself.
