Chimney Loop Campground
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:49 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Chimney Loop Campground is located on the shores of Wagner Lake. Wagner Lake is a shallow sandy bottom lake that is entirely surrounded by National Forest. The lake has excellent bass and pan fish fishing. Chimney Loop campground can accommodate groups of up to 30 people and six cars. Keep reading
Recreation
Water Activities: Wagner Lake provides visitors opportunites for swimming and beach play. Non-motorized watercraft such as canoes and kayaks can be carried into Wagner Lake. Anglers can try their luck from shore, wadding, or by boat to catch bass and pan fish.
Facilities
Facilities at Chimney Loop Campground include a vault toilet, three picnic tables, three fire rings, and use of a historic chimney. Garbage service and handpump wells for drinking water are provided around the corner at Wagner Lake Campground.
Natural Features
The Chimeny Loop group site is set in a forest of oak and pine trees. A very short walk from the shores of Wagner Lake makes this the perfect destination for visitors looking for some solitude. Chimney Loop Campground is located just a short drive from the AuSable River and is close to ORV trails.
Charges & Cancellations
All reservation changes, cancellations, and refunds are managed through Recreation.gov.
What the agency tells you
If you don't receive your gate combination from recreation.gov please contact the Mio Ranger station for the gate combo anytime Monday - Friday between 0900 - 1600 Eastern time.
As a visitor to the National Forest, you are asked to follow certain rules designed to protect the Forest, natural resources and to provide for public safety of visitors. These rules are available to you online or at any office of the Huron-Manistee National Forests. Please take time to read and understand them. General Topic orders apply across the Forests. Applicable Orders: - Motorized Vehicle Use of Roads, Trails and Off-road Areas; R904-14-02 - Occupancy and Use - Developed Recreation Areas, Dispersed Areas, Being Publicly Nude, Marine Prohibitions, Parking and Sanitation; R904-14-03
Forest quiet hours apply.
Everything else this campground posts · 6
You must occupy your site within 24 hours of the start of your reservation. Contact the Forest Service to request a late arrival or your site may be forfeited.
Do not tie or tack anything to standing trees, including but not limited to pets, laundry lines, or garbage bags.
You may use downed wood for firewood. Keep fires within the fire ring. Do not leave hot campfires unattended. Make sure your ashes are cool to the touch before you leave.
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
Fireworks and use of fireworks are not permitted.
ORVs may only be operated on roads and trails signed as open for their use. ORVs may not be used within campgrounds.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 99 ft
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…at Chimney Loop Campground include a vault toilet, three picnic tables, three fire rings, and use of…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Garbage service and handpump wells for drinking water are provided around the corner at Wagner Lake…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Beach
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Kayaking
- Non-Motorized Boating
- Paddling
- Swimming
- Water access
- Night sky · 139th darkest of 192 in MI
- Bortle 3
Full this Saturdayread 16:49 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
1 campground has sites open within 30 miles, read 16:31 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:49 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 · 12
What you actually pay
“All reservation changes, cancellations, and refunds are managed through Recreation.gov.” · this campground’s own terms
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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 1
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:31 UTC
- Ausable River CampingHuron National Forest · 7.4 mi · 78 of 202 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 16:49 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| CHIMNEY LOOP CAMPGROUND | 001 | group standard area nonelectric | 99 ft | yes | 222 ft | $30 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Wagner Lake (MI)Huron National Forest · 0.5 mi
Island lake (MI)Huron National Forest · 3.0 mi
Mack Lake ORV CampgroundHuron National Forest · 4.9 miRiver Dune CampgroundHuron National Forest · 7.3 mi
Ausable River CampingHuron National Forest · 7.4 mi
Au Sable Loop CampgroundHuron National Forest · 7.4 miFrom Grayling:
- Travel east on M-72 for 30 miles.
- Turn right and travel south on M-33 for 7 miles.
- Turn right and travel west on Wagner Lake Rd. for 1.5 miles.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Mio, MI
Typical weather
Typical October night 36°F, day 58°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 10°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
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 · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Chimney Loop 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 →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyJack BergmanU.S. Representative · Michigan’s 1st district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationElissa SlotkinU.S. Senator · Michigan
- Your senator, on the same appropriationGary C. PetersU.S. Senator · Michigan
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Chimney Loop Campground, Huron National Forest, Michigan
Dear Jack Bergman, I’m a constituent in Michigan’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Chimney Loop Campground, Huron National Forest, Michigan, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Chimney Loop Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Chimney Loop Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Chimney Loop Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Chimney Loop Campground (Huron National Forest, Michigan) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Chimney Loop Campground, Huron National Forest, Michigan
Dear Elissa Slotkin, I’m a constituent in Michigan. I tried to camp at Chimney Loop Campground, Huron National Forest, Michigan, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Chimney Loop Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Chimney Loop Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Chimney Loop Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Chimney Loop Campground (Huron National Forest, Michigan) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Chimney Loop Campground, Huron National Forest, Michigan
Dear Gary C. Peters, I’m a constituent in Michigan. I tried to camp at Chimney Loop Campground, Huron National Forest, Michigan, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Chimney Loop Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Chimney Loop Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Chimney Loop Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Chimney Loop Campground (Huron National Forest, Michigan) via campanac.com