Campground Review: Brevoort Lake Campground Moran, MI

I decided to continue heading east in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and found a campsite at the US Forest Service's Brevoort Lake Recreation Area within the Hiawatha National Forest.  I love camping in National Forests because I get to use my Senior Pass that gives me 50% off of whatever the nightly camping rate is.  When I bought my card, which is good for your lifetime, incidentally, the price was a ridiculously low $10!  It more than paid that back in savings on my first usage.

Located about two miles north of US 2 (the UP's main drag) the campground is accessed by a paved road all the way into the campsites, which is nice if it's been raining.  The campground is situated on a peninsula that juts into the 4233 acre Brevoort Lake so there are a lot of waterfront campsites but you need to get reservations to get one of those, as I was a "walk in" I ended up in a non-waterfront site, although I had a view of the lake.  There are about 70 campsites divided into two areas.

Call that number or go online to try and reserve a waterfront site.

Here's the data sheet on Brevoort Lake:

Hookups:                                             None (Dry camping)                                                  

Fire ring:                                              Yes                                                                 

Water Access:                                     Yes                                        

Fresh Water:                                        Yes                                                     

Trash Service:                                      Yes                                                     

Toilets:                                                Yes (Flush)                                                     

Showers:                                             No                                                                  

Dump station:                                      Yes                                         

WiFi:                                                   No                                                      

Level sites:                                          Yes                                                     

Laundry:                                              No                                                                  

Store:                                                  No                                                                  

Pool:                                                   No                                          

Shade:                                                Yes                                                     

Verizon reception:                                4G, 1 bar                                            

Internet reception:                                1 bar               

Cost:                                                  $18/night ($9/night with US Recreation Card)

The campsites at Brevoort Lake are very spacious and almost all are completely shaded by the large forest in which it resides, that was somewhat problematic for my attempts at using the Mini's solar suitcase although I managed enough sunlight to keep the house battery and my electronics charged.

This was about "max sunlight" for solar at my site note the tree shadows.

My site was adjacent to the boat ramp and fishing pier and actually had a little trail through the woods to the ramp and pier so I guess that was my "waterfront".

The fishing pier on Brevoort Lake allows the boatless to still fish.

Ducks sleeping on the dock next to the boat ramp.

There were a couple hiking trails through the forest around the camp but the first one I tried was very narrow and seemed to have poison ivy along it (I'm never 100% sure of my ability to ID poison ivy) so I pretty much kept to the camp roads to do my walking.

On the plus side, there were very few mosquitoes around my site which, anyone who has camped the UP knows, was pretty amazing.  I did my walking without spraying DEET all over myself!

 

View of the lake from one of the waterfront sites.

I stayed four days at Brevoort Lake Campground and found the camping there really enjoyable.  The one piece of advice I'd give anyone who is considering camping there (and which I'll remember for next year) is to reserve a waterfront site well in advance of when you want to camp there, it'll make your camping experience much more memorable.

Thanks for reading!