Grand Island National Recreation Area
1Heads up1 fire 47 mi away
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $8–$10Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 18All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 14 notices
In the agency’s own words
Grand Island is located in Lake Superior, about one-half mile from the mainland community of Munising, Michigan. Munising is about 43 miles from Marquette and 55 miles from Manistique. Grand Island is the perfect place to spend a day or even just a few hours biking and exploring. The island's breathtaking overlooks, pristine sandy beaches, fascinating cultural sites, deep hard woods, and inland lakes make it an exciting and secluded destination. Keep reading
Recreation
Group and indvidiual camping, biking, hiking, ice climbing, swimming, boating, hunting, fishing, and site seeing can all be enjoyed on Grand Island Facilities Campsites equipped with picnic tables, campfire rings, vault or wilderness toilets, bear lockers and/or poles. Some sites have drinking water provided Camping is not allowed at the day-use sites.
Natural Features
Grand Island National Recreation Area Campground part of the Hiawatha National Forest, near Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Calm waters, 300 foot sandstone cliffs, and white-sand beaches beckon boaters and swimmers to the area.
Nearby Attractions
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Hiawatha National Forest, and the City of Munising. The Munising Area provides a variety of restaurants, hotels, camping opportunities and outfitters. Local outfitters provide guided and self-guided kayak, canoe, pontoon and mountain bike rentals. Charges & Cancellations see recreation.gov policy
What the agency tells you
Customers must print out reservation permit or have it on your phone.
Campsites can be reserved for up to 4 consecutive days. Reservations are required and can be made up to and including the day of arrival.
There are 19 individual (4-6 people and 2 tents per site) and two group sites (1-25 people, 2 tents per site pad) on Grand Island. Reservations are required for camping on Grand Island between Memorial Day through Columbus Day with the exception of Cobble Cove, Flat Rock, and Muskrat Point campsites which will remain first-come, first-served.
Everything else this campground posts · 11
You may use dead and down firewood collected from the nearby woods or provided firewood for your campfire. Do not cut down live or standing trees.
Sites are hike in, bike in or boat in only. Public vehicles are not allowed on the Island.
Your campsite must be occupied by 7:00 p.m. the day of your reservation and may not be left unattended over 24 hours thereafter. If you have not arrived by 7:00 p.m. the day of your reservation, your reservation will be canceled and the campsite will be opened up for reservations.
Black bears live on this island. Information is available at the Ranger District on how to prevent and survive bear encounters. Be prepared to store your food and all consumable and scented items, including trash, in the bear locker or on the bear pole at the site. Never leave food unattended in campsite.
There are no supplies available on the Island.
Pack-in/Pack-out all of your gear, unused food, trash and other supplies; there is no trash service on Grand Island.
The mosquitoes and black flies can be very bad from Mid-May to mid-July. Be sure to bring plenty of insect repellant and even a head net during those months.
Avoid climbing on or standing along the sandstone cliffs. The sandstone is very fragile and may not support your weight.
Grand Island is closed to rock climbing, rappelling and portable generators.
Domestic animals must be kept on a leash, except while being used for hunting.
Through the Recreation Enhancement Act, a fee of $5.00/per person per trip is charged, and is included in the passenger ferry fee; season, family and boat entrance passes are also available.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 18 · 18 walk-in, 2 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Pit Toilets
- PIT TOILETS on 16 of 18 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER on 1 of 18 campsite records, DRINKING WATER (HAND PUMP) on 3 of 18 campsite records
- Bear boxes
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Backpacking
- Berry Picking
- Biking
- Birding
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Historic site
- Hunting
- Ice Climbing
- Ice Fishing
- Ranger programs
- Kayaking
- Mountain biking
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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 · 16
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $8–$10 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.
“see recreation.gov policy” · 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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
18 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 18 mapped sitesAll 18 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. 18 of the 18 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Bermuda | hike to | 1339 ft | 53 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Channel Marker | hike to | 8883 ft | 544 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Driftwood | hike to | 1052 ft | 73 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Duck Lake | hike to | 1966 ft | under 10 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Freighter View | hike to | 2681 ft | 829 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Gamefence | hike to | 584 ft | 418 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Gull Point | hike to | 1434 ft | 145 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Hardwood | hike to | 1765 ft | 420 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Hemlock | hike to | 584 ft | 349 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Juniper Flats Group Site | group hike to | 2168 ft | 59 ft | $30 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Little Duck | hike to | 1052 ft | 432 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Little Dune 1 | hike to | 353 ft | 170 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Little Dune 2 | hike to | 353 ft | 132 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Loon Call | hike to | 978 ft | 120 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Murray Bay Group Site | group hike to | 978 ft | 116 ft | $30 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Preservation Point | hike to | 1434 ft | 36 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Road's End | hike to | 4190 ft | 707 ft | $8–$10 |
| Grand Island Recreation Area | Shelter Ridge | hike to | 2681 ft | 815 ft | $8–$10 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Bay Furnace CampgroundHiawatha National Forest · 2.1 mi
Grand Island CabinsGrand Island National Recreation Area · 3.1 mi
Cliffs Individual Backpacking SitesPictured Rocks National Lakeshore · 4.9 mi
Cliffs Group Backpacking SitePictured Rocks National Lakeshore · 5.9 mi
Potato Patch Individual Backpacking SitesPictured Rocks National Lakeshore · 7.4 mi
Au Train Lake CampgroundHiawatha National Forest · 9.1 miVisitors can get to the island via passenger ferry (Grand Island Ferry Service) or private watercraft. The ferry departs from Grand Island Landing on the mainland, located on M-28, about 3 to 4 miles west of the Munising's blinking light. Look for the Grand Island NRA signs. Prices and schedules vary from season to season. For information or reservations, call (906) 387-2600 or visit their website at http://www.grandislandup.com/
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Munising, MI
Typical weather
Typical October night 39°F, day 55°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 12°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
Who answers for this land
Grand Island National Recreation Area 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 →