Council Lake Dispersed Campsite — Hotel in Munising Township

9/18/2024 Revision - although I did not go back to Council Lake, I re-visited the larger area last week. Since my original post two+ years ago, Reservation.gov is the website responsible for showing availability, managing scheduling & taking cancellations. The new system is verbose & takes a bit of time to learn how to navigate, but it's very effective once you "learn your way around". Cancellations within a reasonable (1 to 2 day?) window now pay refunds which, theoretically, could help false status of sites not available. HOWEVER ... people are going to have emergencies & last minute cancellations. Or they may simply reserve multiple windows and use the one with the best weather. Which, last minute cancellations may not be in time for others to take advantage of availability. I don't know the right answer for this. But somewhere there is an answer to being able to claim a site showing reserved but no show. Hopefully, the smartest people at Recreation.Gov will spend some time assessing this- contact me if I can help. This part of the country is too amazing to miss opportunities to explore Nature at her finest. Bottom line - the new system at Recreation.gov is a great improvement. Original post follows: If you're reading this review you are probably already aware that this is a primitive campsite in the wilderness of the upper peninsula of Michigan. It is a part of the Michigan DNR's primitive dispersed camping program. Council Lake has four campsites with one shared primitive toilet. Each campsite has a picnic table and a fire ring. The campsites are within several paces of a small lake. The area offers total solitude and is simply beautiful. I would give this site five stars except the state of Michigan has outsourced management of these sites to a third party. The sites have to be reserved and paid in advance. 2 days before I visited the site I tried to reserve a campsite and the online system showed no sites available. For future reference, I decided to check the site out anyway. When I arrived all four sites were empty with no immediate evidence of having been used recently. There are over 30 locations of dispersed campsites in the Hiawatha National Forest. Many of these locations have multiple campsites, so there are actually more than 30 sites to camp on. That is, if you can trust the information that is available online for availability. Completely disappointed with...

Great primitive campsites. 1&2 are small 3 is literally right next to 2 so if you want privacy reserve both 2&3 otherwise you’ll be camping right on top of others. Site 4 is the BEST. Far away from all the others and it’s the easiest access to the lake and the hiking trail. All sites have picnic tables and fire rings. Vault toilet is adequate. We fished everyday and kayaked. There are 4 lakes connected to council lake. The fishing was good. Lots of good crappie and some average bass with some small pike. With the sites only being $8 I reserved the whole campground for a few days to get some peace. General store is 5 min away and the access road is dirt/sand but it’s well maintained so access was not an issue. This site is between 20-50 min drive from the various pictured rocks attractions. You will not be...

Perfect camping site, plenty of room to park cars and set up tents. Awesome beach access and fishing. Good tables and fire pit. Secluded, and access to river system leading down to Wide Waters campground. The bathroom is nice and clean, close to Forest Glen Store and Munising. This is a great place to go if you want to camp in the WideWaters area, with more quiet and privacy. It was only 7 dollars a night if I remember correctly. Extremely worth it.

We came the first week of May, and Spring arrived about 3 days into our stay. Everything started blooming at once. Cool experience, as you can see from the pictures is was still pretty bare when we first got there. By the 8th of May it was almost...