Au Train Lake Campground
1Heads up1 fire 40 mi away
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- A night
- $26From, per site
- Sites
- 3433 on recreation.gov
- Season
- May 15 – September 30Open May 15 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 12 notices
In the agency’s own words
Located at the south end of AuTrain Lake, this campground is favored by anglers and outdoor enthusiasts. The quiet setting is great for family trips, and visitors can enjoy a variety of recreational opportunities year-round, all less than a day's drive from major urban areas of Michigan and Wisconsin. Keep reading
Recreation
The large size of the lake provides miles of prime water skiing, boating, swimming and fishing. Anglers can expect a healthy catch of bass and a variety of perch. Canoeing is also popular on AuTrain Lake and the nearby AuTrain River, which meanders into Lake Superior. The campground also provides access to the popular two-mile Songbird interpretive trail, which winds through forest and field, along bog and lakeshore, and is popular for birding. A wildlife viewing platform is available at neighboring Buck Bay and Buck Bay Creek.
Facilities
The campground offers dozens of large, wooded campsites, available for tent and RV camping. Some sites are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Each site is equipped with tables and campfire rings with grills. Accessible vault toilets and drinking water are provided. A boat ramp is available at the parking area of the campground, and the lot offers plenty of space for turning and parking. Boat rentals are available in AuTrain.
Natural Features
AuTrain Lake is located in the upper peninsula of Michigan, between three of the Great Lakes. It sits amid rolling hills forested with pine and aspen trees, as well as large open and tree-covered wetlands. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (906) 767-1111.
Nearby Attractions
The city of AuTrain, located on the shores of Lake Superior, is about 5 miles from the campground.
What the agency tells you
No lifeguard is on duty at the beach; swim at your own risk
Off-road vehicles not permitted
There are no electricity, water or sewer hookups at the campground
Everything else this campground posts · 9
Two pets per site
No switching sites upon arrival
Please Note: One RV with tow vehicle per single site or one vehicle per tent site. Most sites can accommodate 1 extra vehicle that is not included with the reservation fee. Extra vehicle will be charged an $8 per night fee and collected at the campground if you did not pay for the Extra Vehicle Add On. Extra vehicles must fit on the parking spur at your site.
Reserved Sites will be held until checkout time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of the second day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests.
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Don't move firewood: To limit the spread of invasive tree-killing pests, firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Some states have quarantines and may confiscate your firewood. Please help protect our forests from invasive species by obtaining your firewood at or near your camping destination and burning it on-site. Visit dontmovefirewood.org for more information.
Hiawatha National Forest - West Day Use Fees: Day Use $8.00 Day Use Annual Pass $40.00
Check OUT is at 12:00 PM Check IN is at 2:00 PM
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 34
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 60 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…campfire rings with grills. Accessible vault toilets and drinking water are provided. A boat ramp is…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…grills. Accessible vault toilets and drinking water are provided. A boat ramp is available at the…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek, Coast
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 119th darkest of 192 in MI
- Bortle 2
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 33 of the 34 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
“Extra vehicle will be charged an $8 per night fee and collected at the campground if you did not pay for the Extra Vehicle Add On.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $26 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
34 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 33 mapped sitesAll 34 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 34 of the 34 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 34 of the 34 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 001 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 86 ft | 425 ft | 544 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 002 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 86 ft | 352 ft | 523 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 003 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 89 ft | 426 ft | 609 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 004 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 92 ft | 350 ft | 603 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 005 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 92 ft | 422 ft | 694 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 007 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 119 ft | 406 ft | 781 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 008 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 94 ft | 407 ft | 870 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 009 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 94 ft | 326 ft | 777 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 010 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 76 ft | 407 ft | 936 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 011 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 76 ft | 348 ft | 972 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 012 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 139 ft | 139 ft | 773 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 013 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 73 ft | 85 ft | 645 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 014 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 73 ft | 158 ft | 693 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 015 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 101 ft | 94 ft | 552 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 017 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 70 ft | 100 ft | 460 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 018 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 70 ft | 170 ft | 491 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 019 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 75 ft | 107 ft | 364 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 020 | type not stated | 25 ft | 184 ft | 372 ft | $24 | |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 021 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 75 ft | 121 ft | 291 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 022 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 68 ft | 177 ft | 72 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 023 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 68 ft | 243 ft | 32 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 024 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 89 ft | 178 ft | 73 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 026 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 89 ft | 139 ft | 149 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 027 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 102 ft | 127 ft | 255 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 028 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 99 ft | 220 ft | 282 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 029 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 99 ft | 156 ft | 351 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 030 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 114 ft | 368 ft | 303 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 031 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 81 ft | 439 ft | 283 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 032 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 78 ft | 452 ft | 251 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 033 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 78 ft | 392 ft | 175 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 034 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 90 ft | 456 ft | 238 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 035 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 90 ft | 374 ft | 180 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 036 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 85 ft | 420 ft | 306 ft | $26 |
| AuTrain Lake Campground | 037 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 85 ft | 343 ft | 281 ft | $26 |
25 of 34 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Bay Furnace CampgroundHiawatha National Forest · 7.0 mi
Grand Island National Recreation AreaHiawatha National Forest · 9.1 miHovey Lake CampsitesHiawatha National Forest · 9.8 mi
Grand Island CabinsGrand Island National Recreation Area · 9.8 mi
Island LakeHiawatha National Forest · 12 mi
Council Lake CampsitesHiawatha National Forest · 14 miAuTrain Lake Campground is located in Alger County, about 10 miles southwest of Munising. From AuTrain, travel south on Forest Service Road H03 for about 4 miles, then go a mile east on Forest Road 2276, and then another mile north on Forest Service Road 2596 to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Chatham, MI
Typical weather
Typical May night 39°F, day 63°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Au Train Lake Campground is in Michigan’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Jack Bergman (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →