Muskallonge Lake State Park Campground

At 217 acres, Muskallonge Lake State Park is on the smaller side. However, it is a great basecamp to visit the many scenic locales throughout the northeastern section of the Upper Peninsula. 

The campsites vary immensely in size throughout but include both paved, gravel, and grass sites in essentially all the loops. This much variety allows you to choose if you want a woodsier feel (sites 131-159), a more open area (sites 1-80), or a little in between (81-130.) Two bathhouses are available since the campground is so large.

If you have an ORV/ATV, Muskallonge Lake State Park is one of the few state parks where you can ride your ORV straight from the state park to the many nearby designated ORV trails. (This is special because in most Michigan state parks you have to keep your ATV trailered and haul it to the trailhead.)

The Lake Superior shoreline is a great place to hunt for all types of rocks from agates, granite, basalt, and even Petoskey Stones. At the campground host station is a board that describes the different rock types and what they look like. Before you head to the beach check the host station first to see what to look for. (Note, if you take a UV flashlight with you once it gets dark you might even find some of the special Yooperlite rocks!)

The only hiking trail in the park is a 1.5-mile trail that connects to a segment of the North Country Trail. 

A designated swimming beach is available near the campground, as well as a small day-use area with a few picnic tables, grills, and some old playground equipment.

Camped here In August 2018 for a few days. The bathrooms and showers were clean, although they seemed to close them for cleaning at random times that were never consistent. The vault toilets should have hand sanitizer dispensers. The sites were neat enough with fire rings and some have electricity. The amount of goose poop was unreal though. You have access to Muskallonge Lake in the campground, and there is Lake Superior access not too far down the road, there is a trail from the campground. You can bring your ORV here, but are only allowed to ride in or out of the park, no stopping, not even to drop someone off to buy ice. The sites in Sections 2 and 3 were woodsier than Section 1 where we were, but not all have electric hookups. Booking on the MI DNR website was easy.

We used the campground as our base to go to Munising to do the Pictured Rocks boat tour about 2 hours away, go down through Newberry and across the Seney Stretch unless you like washboard dirt roads, Oswald's Bear Ranch, and Tahquamenon Falls. We took our Kawasaki Ranger out to the Crisp Point Lighthouse. The black flies were bad at the light, a worker said it was because the wind was coming from the south at the time. We had enough Verizon service at the campground for texts, but not enough for much else. The front ranger station provides Wi-Fi. There's a little store for supplies in Deer Park not far down the road. The nearest full grocery is in Newberry about a half hour away. The road between Grand Marais and Muskallonge is not paved, but I believe they are planning on it

This 217-acre state park is located right on Lake Muskallonge and a short walk from Lake Superior. We chose this park because it was close enough to travel to the eastern of the 40 - mile long Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (NL), Tahquamenon Falls and the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point. The plan made sense – stay at a nice place and explore a beautiful area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But, things did not work out as planned. We quickly learned that to get to any of these places you would have to travel on gravel washboard roads which can make for slow travel and long days. The other problem we had was that hiking in Pictured Rocks with our dog was not going to happen. Turns out dogs are only allowed on a couple of short trails and in developed areas like campgrounds and parking lots.   

We camped here in mid-July and the campground was packed. Campers and tents were scattered about and it was hard to distinguish some sites from others. Our site was a long pull-thru which was gravel with a large gravel patio with a picnic table and fire pit and had a partial view of the lake. It gave us a little bit of space on our patio but campers on the other side were right next to us.  Not all sites are created equal in this park. Our site was one that they recently upgraded to 50 amp and the gravel but some are just grass. We did not get cell or internet service with our Verizon phone and don’t even think about getting over the air antenna television channels – not happening. There is a WiFi hotspot at the office/camp store but we did not use it.

Next to the playground is a swim beach (where boats are excluded) that was extremely popular especially since it was so hot. A concrete boat launch with short dock is a short distance from the campground and is suitable for launching motorboats and paddle craft. Many people who launched their boats left them tied up in the campground for easy access.  

We really enjoyed the state park and found it very relaxing but it was not as close to attractions as we originally thought. There is a portion of the North Country Scenic Trail that runs through the park but that portion of it had recently washed out and was closed when we were there. The closest towns are a good 30 minutes away so make sure you bring groceries and whatever supplies you need.