CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
U.S. Forest Service · Ottawa National Forest · MI

Imp Lake Campground

5Heads up5 fires, nearest 27 mi
Wildfire
Schneider fire · 27 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Aspen Power fire · 35 mi away · 0 acres · updated Oct 14, 2026
Wildfire
Bog fire · 44 mi away · 94 acres · updated Oct 7, 2026
Wildfire
Black River fire · 44 mi away · 350 acres · 70% contained · updated Oct 17, 2026
Wildfire
Black River fire · 44 mi away · 300 acres · updated Oct 12, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 17, 2026
The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
A night
$16From, per site
Season
May 17 – September 30Open May 17 through September 30
1,710 ftElevation
233 ftWater · Imp Lake
20.3 miNE of Eagle River, WI
66%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 103rd darkest of 192 in MI
Open May 17 through September 30Today

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Imp Lake Campground located 6 miles southeast of Watersmeet, MI, provides visitors with a unique camping experience. Lakeside sites offer a quaint view of a small island populated with nesting loons, while off lake sites are perched beside towering hemlocks. Visitors are free to roam the nearby Imp Lake Interpretive Trail, canoe or fish the quiet wake free lake. This campground consisting of two camping loops, with a total of 22 campsites, provides drive-in sites that can accommodate tents, trailers and motor homes. All sites are spaced with natural vegetation for screening. Each site offers a wood table, fire ring, and parking spur. Three sets of vault toilets and two hand pumps for drinking water are located within the camping loops. A picnic area, and boat landing are located adjacent to the campground.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…ring, and parking spur. Three sets of vault toilets and two hand pumps for drinking water are located…”
Drinking water
Yes
“…Three sets of vault toilets and two hand pumps for drinking water are located within the camping…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
Lake
Source: Stated in the agency description

Phone before you drive

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
A night$16Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$32DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$16
A night$16
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$16
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$32

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($16), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate46.21777, -89.07046

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight24°Mostly Clear
Saturday55°Sunny
Saturday Night36°Clear
Sunday60°Mostly Sunny

NWS forecast for Watersmeet, MI

Source: National Weather Service, MQT forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical May night 39°F, day 65°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 39°F. Bring the bag rated for it.

90°32°-10°

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.

Measured at: EAGLE RVR, WI (USC00472314), 23 miles away and 87 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

developing

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 16, 2026

Who answers for this land

Jack Bergman, official portrait

Imp 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it out of season. The season it publishes is the bar below.
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.056 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 192 rated federal campgrounds in Michigan · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Watersmeet, MI, 4.4 mi SE (a census designated place). Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026