Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite
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 15 of the next 15 nights read 16:33 UTC
- A night
- $75From, per site
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Hungerford Recreation Area offers access to over 50 miles of trails for horseback riding, hiking and mountain biking. The horse trails connect to the group campsite. There are a few small lakes located nearby, including, Hungerford Lake, Toogood Lake and Mud Lake. Keep reading
Recreation
Forty-seven plus miles of horseback riding trails and 10 miles of mountain biking trails make the campground an ideal place for both equestrian campers and outdoors enthusiasts. Hungerford Lake is located a half mile south of the Hungerford Family Campground and one and a quarter miles south of the Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite. The area offers fishing and boating opportunities. Horses are not allowed in or around the lake area, but visitors interested in fishing are welcome to cast for bass, pike and pan fish. There is a boat ramp located at the lake.
Facilities
There are eight individual sites within the group camp area. Each site can accommodate one large horse trailer, two vehicles and eight people. Picnic tables, lantern posts, fire rings, and picket poles to highline horses are provided at each of the eight sites. A vault toilet, manure disposal area, trash disposal, and large group campfire ring are provided for the campground. Drinking water is available at the Hungerford Campground, located 1.25 miles south of the site. The group site's check in and check out time is 12 noon.
Natural Features
The campground is perched along lightly rolling hills in the Manistee National Forest. It is about a mile north of Hungerford Lake and the 48 site Hungerford Campground. The lake spans 30 acres and is a favorite spot to see fall colors. The Manistee National Forest comprises 540,000 acres and meets the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.
Nearby Attractions
Visit the city of Big Rapids, Michigan, or the Loda Lake Wildflower Sanctuary. Benton, Indian, Brush, and Shelley lakes are also nearby.
Charges & Cancellations
Cancellations will not be accepted within 7 days of scheduled date of arrival.
What the agency tells you
There are picket poles to highline your horses at each site. Horses cannot be tied directly to trees. No corrals are allowed in the campground.
No firearms or fireworks allowed in campground.
Fires are allowed in campfire rings only.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
No electric hookups available.
Collect only down and dead wood for campfires.
No off-road vehicles allowed in campground.
For more information on Huron-Manistee National Forests, click here
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 equestrian
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 60 ft
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Not allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…provided at each of the eight sites. A vault toilet, manure disposal area, trash disposal, and large…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…ring are provided for the campground. Drinking water is available at the Hungerford Campground, located…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Biking
- Hiking
- Night sky · 186th darkest of 192 in MI
- Bortle 4
Full this Saturdayread 16:33 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 16:33 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
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $75 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.
“Cancellations will not be accepted within 7 days of scheduled date of arrival.” · 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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:33 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.
| LOOP A | 1 | equestrian nonelectric | 60 ft | yes | 2,257 ftHungerford Lake | $75 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Nichols Lake South CampgroundManistee National Forest · 14 miFrom Big Rapids on US-131: Take M-20 west 8.5 miles to Cypress Ave. Go 0.5 miles north on Cypress Ave. Turn right on Hungerford Lake Drive and proceed 0.5 miles. Turn north on FR5134 and travel 2 miles to the group campsite.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Big Rapids, MI
Typical weather
Typical October night 36°F, day 58°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 · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite is in Michigan’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, John Moolenaar (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 moneyJohn R. MoolenaarU.S. Representative · Michigan’s 2nd 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 Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite, Manistee National Forest, Michigan
Dear John R. Moolenaar, I’m a constituent in Michigan’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite, Manistee National Forest, Michigan, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite 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. Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite. 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 Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite (Manistee 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 Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite, Manistee National Forest, Michigan
Dear Elissa Slotkin, I’m a constituent in Michigan. I tried to camp at Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite, Manistee National Forest, Michigan, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite 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. Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite. 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 Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite (Manistee 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 Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite, Manistee National Forest, Michigan
Dear Gary C. Peters, I’m a constituent in Michigan. I tried to camp at Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite, Manistee National Forest, Michigan, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite 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. Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite. 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 Hungerford Equestrian Group Campsite (Manistee National Forest, Michigan) via campanac.com