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!

Oversized Breakfast of the Week

I'm in the little Upper Peninsula town of Pickford, MI staying at their giant 30 acre town park.  I'll do a full review in a few days.  Whenever I get to a new town I use Yelp to discover local diners and restaurants to try out.  When I "Yelped" Pickford a diner named Big D's Diner came up with all 5 star customer reviews so I walked over from the park and ordered the Southern Omelette Special they were featuring.  This is what I got served:

The biggest "3 egg" omelette I've ever seen!

When the waitress set it down in front of me and I exclaimed "Wow!' she laughed and said "We don't mess around here!"'  I think I did a pretty good job by getting through 2/3'ds of both the omelette (you can't tell from this over head shot but it was about 2 inches thick!) and the hash browns.  If you ever are in Pickford you HAVE to get breakfast at Big D's Diner,,,,,you WILL NOT walk out hungry!

Thanks for reading!

Campground Review: Northern Lights Campground Republic, MI

The township of Republic, Michigan got funding to upgrade the recreation facilities around the tiny town, with the project finishing up at the end of June I revisited Republic in early July to checkout the new campground.  Readers of the blog may recall I had stayed at Republic's "free" campground in 2014 when it wasn't much more than a field to park in.  Click here for the 2014 write-up  The new camping facility is quite a step up for Republic and has a new name, Northern Lights Campground.

It also comes with a brand new set of rules!

The Michigan DNR closed the old campground in 2009 for "lack of funding" and it still resides to the other side of a road from the new Northern Lights Campground.  The new campground consists of 12 spaciously arranged RV sites with electric and water hookups and about a dozen tent sites with no hookups.  During my stay over the 4th of July the RV sites were about half full.

Here's the Northern Lights data sheet:

Hookups:                                             20,  30 & 50 amp, water                                            

Fire ring:                                              Yes                                                                 

Water Access:                                     Yes (river)                                                                  

Fresh Water:                                        Yes                                                     

Trash Service:                                      Yes                                                     

Toilets:                                                Yes (vault)                                                     

Showers:                                             No                                                                  

Dump station:                                      Yes                                                     

WiFi:                                                   No                                                      

Level sites:                                          Yes                                                     

Laundry:                                              No                                                      

Store:                                                  No (Minimart 1 block away)                                      

Pool:                                                   No                                          

Shade:                                                Yes                                         

Verizon reception:                               3G, 2 bars                                           

Internet reception:                               2 bars                          

Cost:                                                 $20 / night for RV's, $5 / night for tents

The Mini's campsite at Northern Lights.

Going from free to $20 a night is a reach but the new sites are legitimate campsites compared to the old field the DNR used to maintain (come to think of it how would they run out of funds for a field?)

One of the tent sites with fire ring.

Did I mention that each RV site has cable?  With more than 60 channels!  All the homes in Republic that I passed on my walks have Dish or Direct TV antennas but somehow the county (I assume that's who administers the campground) got cable into the new campground - go figure!  

The upgrade project also created (or upgraded) a hiking/ATV path through the woods surrounding Republic.  I walked for three miles and didn't come close to the end of the trail before some mosquito attackers drove me back onto the streets of Republic, 

The start of a hiking trail out of the campground.

While I always hate to see a free campground go away the new Northern Lights Campground is a really nice upgrade for Republic and should bring in a lot more RV traffic to the township.  I'll include it on my yearly UP camp list!

Thanks for reading!