Beatrice Lake Campground — McCarthy Beach State Park

The Beatrice Lake Campground is a rustic campground within the George Washington State Forest. It has 30 campsites, 3 of which are hike-in sites on a pretty peninsula on Beatrice Lake. Although this campground is officially "managed" by the staff at nearby McCarthy Beach State Park, it is separate from the park and about six miles drive away from it into the state forest. You access it by a backwwods dirt road west of the state park, or via the Taconite Trail which is for hiking, mountain biking or horseback riding. So, while you are not really too far from the spectacular beach at Sturgeon Lake, and other amenities of McCarthy Beach Sate Park, you will have much much more secluded and rustic camping experience at this campground. There is room for an rv to park at many of the sites, but no hookups. The camspites are more spacious (especially the hike-in sites!) and I think the whole campground is more scenic. If you are interested in a vacation in the Sturgeon Lake area, and have older children or adults in your group, you might find this more remote campground preferable to the one right at McCarthy Beach State Park. There is a boat landing here, hiking opportunities, boating and fishing and peace and quiet.

The campsites at Beatrice Lake are not reservable, and are avaialble only on a first come first served basis. However, it seems that even in the height of summer camping season, this campground is lightly used and you wont have any trouble finding a spot. If you want to get a sense of the camspites availalble, you can go to the MN camping reservations page, https://reservemn.usedirect.com/MinnesotaWeb/Facilities/AdvanceSearch.aspx

then select McCarthy Lake State Park, then select Beatrice Lake campground. Even if the sites aren’t reservable, you can see the campground map and see which ones are currently occupied.

Additional info can be found at these links:

McCarthy Beach State Park, which administers the Beatrice Lake Campground: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/park.html?id=spk00226#homepage

Boat landing on Beatrice lake: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/compass/pwa.html?map=COMPASS_MAPFILE&mode=indexquery&shapeindex=2323&qlayer=shor_waspt3_query

Fishing info for Beatrice Lake: http://www.lake-link.com/minnesota-lakes/itasca-county/beatrice-lake/7817/

DNR homepage for the George Washington State Forest: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_forests/forest.html?id=sft00021#homepage

Info and map of George Washington State Forest:

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/state_forests/sft00021.pdf

Taconite Trail, which connects Beatrice lake and Mc Carhty Bech state park: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_trails/taconite/index.html