Mackinaw
- Right now
- Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
- Sites
- 67All of them booked ahead
- Season
- May 1 – September 30Open May 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Mackinaw Campground is located next to Fish Lake and the Fishlake Scenic Byway in central Utah at an elevation of 9,000 feet. Visitors enjoy boating, fishing and exploring local trails. Keep reading
Recreation
Fish Lake is Utah's largest natural mountain lake, covering 2,500 acres. It is famous for its 20-40 pound Mackinaw lake trout. Anglers also enjoy fishing for rainbow trout and splake. Boating, canoeing, swimming and scuba diving are popular activities. The 5-mile Pelican Canyon Trail begins next door at Bowery Creek Campground. It leads through meadows and dense forests of spruce, pine and aspen as it climbs to the 11,633-foot Fish Lake Hightop. The popular Lakeshore National Recreation Trail extends around the eastern side of the lake. Hikers are rewarded with stunning lake views after climbing 900 feet in elevation.
Facilities
The campground contains four group sites that can accommodate up to 20 people each. Picnic tables and fire rings with grills are provided. Several single-family sites are available as well. Most sites have lake views. Flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking spurs are paved. Three resorts are located in the Fish Lake Basin, offering camping and fishing supplies, RV parks with hookups, cabin and boat rentals, marinas, gas, restaurants, groceries, laundry facilities and showers. The resorts are open from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Natural Features
The campground sits on a sagebrush-covered hillside above the valley floor and offers views of Fish Lake. Aspen trees forest the site, providing partial shade.
Nearby Attractions
Johnson Valley Reservoir is just north of Fish Lake, offering additional fishing and boating opportunities.
What the agency tells you
This is a high elevation facility; use caution when traveling from lower elevations and be prepared for inclement weather
Street legal and non-street legal vehicles are allowed for access and egress only.
There are no electricity, water or sewer hookups at the campground.
Everything else this campground posts · 6
This is a 'pack it in-pack it out' facility. Please bring your own garbage bags. Dumpsters are available within Fishlake Basin.
Camping is limited to 16 days.
Any vehicles or trailers that can not fit in the designated site must be relocated to another site purchased at full site price. Check area map for available free parking
Click here for more info about the Fishlake National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Help prevent the spread of tree-killing pests in our national forests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Discharging a firearm of any kind is prohibited: this includes BB guns, slingshots, paintball guns etc. Take these activities outside of the campground please.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 67 · 1 tent-only, 9 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 125 ft
- Paved pads
- 23 of 67
- Accessible sites
- 2
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…as well. Most sites have lake views. Flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided. Roads and…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…lake views. Flush toilets, showers and drinking water are provided. Roads and parking spurs are paved.…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 85th darkest of 458 in UT
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 14 days ago, 4.1 km away
- Patchy color
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 9
What you actually pay
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 · 4
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
67 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 62 mapped sitesAll 67 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 62 of the 67 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
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.
| Double | 035 | group standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 52 ft | 572 ft | 199 ft | |
| DOUBLE | 025 | group standard nonelectric | 125 ft | 102 ft | 304 ft | 165 ft | |
| DOUBLE | 026 | group standard nonelectric | 115 ft | 116 ft | 342 ft | 147 ft | |
| DOUBLE | 027 | group standard nonelectric | 110 ft | 70 ft | 364 ft | 238 ft | |
| DOUBLE | 046 | group standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 93 ft | 625 ft | 243 ft | |
| MACK | 029 | group rv area nonelectric | 61 ft | 349 ft | 228 ft | ||
| MACK | 031 | group rv area nonelectric | 61 ft | 352 ft | 203 ft | ||
| MACK | 032 | group rv area nonelectric | 71 ft | 346 ft | 209 ft | ||
| SING | 001 | standard nonelectric | 134 ft | 273 ft | 217 ft | ||
| SING | 002 | standard nonelectric | 121 ft | 290 ft | 134 ft | ||
| SING | 003 | standard nonelectric | 87 ft | 303 ft | 182 ft | ||
| SING | 004 | tent only nonelectric | 30 ft | 61 ft | 403 ft | 123 ft | |
| SING | 005 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 61 ft | 361 ft | 95 ft | |
| SING | 006 | standard nonelectric | |||||
| SING | 007 | standard nonelectric | 95 ft | 565 ft | 198 ft | ||
| SING | 008 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 124 ft | 489 ft | 78 ft | |
| SING | 009 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | 78 ft | 518 ft | 261 ft | |
| SING | 010 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 78 ft | 479 ft | 185 ft | |
| SING | 011 | standard nonelectric | |||||
| SING | 012 | standard nonelectric | 109 ft | 448 ft | 215 ft | ||
| SING | 013 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 109 ft | 356 ft | 107 ft |
| SING | 014 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | yes | |||
| SING | 015 | standard nonelectric | 139 ft | 424 ft | 113 ft | ||
| SING | 016 | standard nonelectric | 94 ft | 532 ft | 71 ft | ||
| SING | 017 | standard nonelectric | 94 ft | 609 ft | 149 ft | ||
| SING | 018 | standard nonelectric | 118 ft | 629 ft | 247 ft | ||
| SING | 019 | standard nonelectric | 118 ft | 525 ft | 182 ft | ||
| SING | 020 | standard nonelectric | 94 ft | 419 ft | 212 ft | ||
| SING | 021 | standard nonelectric | 108 ft | 344 ft | 180 ft | ||
| SING | 022 | standard nonelectric | 122 ft | 263 ft | 306 ft | ||
| SING | 023 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 344 ft | 165 ft | ||
| SING | 024 | standard nonelectric | 102 ft | 274 ft | 206 ft | ||
| SING | 028 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 70 ft | 431 ft | 227 ft | |
| SING | 030 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 88 ft | 442 ft | 148 ft | |
| SING | 033 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 417 ft | 139 ft | ||
| SING | 034 | standard nonelectric | 94 ft | 543 ft | 85 ft | ||
| SING | 036 | standard nonelectric | 52 ft | 604 ft | 166 ft | ||
| SING | 037 | standard nonelectric | 69 ft | 645 ft | 235 ft | ||
| SING | 038 | standard nonelectric | 64 ft | 710 ft | 252 ft | ||
| SING | 039 | standard nonelectric | 64 ft | 730 ft | 225 ft | ||
| SING | 040 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | 74 ft | 661 ft | 130 ft | |
| SING | 041 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 74 ft | 716 ft | 168 ft | |
| SING | 042 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | ||||
| SING | 043 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 604 ft | 123 ft | ||
| SING | 044 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 676 ft | 176 ft | ||
| SING | 045 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 93 ft | 593 ft | 209 ft | |
| SING | 047 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 108 ft | 545 ft | 136 ft | |
| SING | 048 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | 496 ft | 99 ft | ||
| SING | 049 | standard nonelectric | 86 ft | 624 ft | 164 ft | ||
| SING | 050 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | 563 ft | 157 ft | ||
| SING | 051 | standard nonelectric | |||||
| SING | 052 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 84 ft | 494 ft | 181 ft | |
| SING | 053 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 76 ft | 405 ft | 165 ft | |
| SING | 054 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 90 ft | 385 ft | 255 ft | |
| SING | 055 | standard nonelectric | 97 ft | 368 ft | 396 ft | ||
| SING | 056 | group standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 95 ft | 408 ft | 299 ft | |
| SING | 057 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 95 ft | 421 ft | 216 ft | |
| SING | 058 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 102 ft | 319 ft | 295 ft | |
| SING | 059 | standard nonelectric | 129 ft | 438 ft | 155 ft | ||
| SING | 060 | standard nonelectric | 85 ft | 505 ft | 181 ft | ||
| SING | 061 | standard nonelectric | 85 ft | 511 ft | 261 ft | ||
| SING | 062 | standard nonelectric | 131 ft | 636 ft | 189 ft | ||
| SING | 063 | standard nonelectric | 168 ft | 807 ft | 440 ft | ||
| SING | 064 | standard nonelectric | 168 ft | 754 ft | 282 ft | ||
| SING | 065 | standard nonelectric | 84 ft | 851 ft | 274 ft | ||
| SING | 066 | standard nonelectric | 84 ft | 797 ft | 209 ft | ||
| SING | 067 | standard nonelectric | 121 ft | 862 ft | 287 ft |
25 of 67 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Bowery Creek CampgroundFishlake National Forest · 0.5 mi
Twin Creeks PicnicFishlake National Forest · 0.5 mi
Bowery CreekFishlake National Forest · 1.8 miMallard Bay Overflow Rec SiteFishlake National Forest · 2.1 mi
Doctor CreekFishlake National Forest · 2.5 mi
Frying PanFishlake National Forest · 4.2 miFrom Highway 24 northwest of Loa, Utah, take Highway 25 northeast 9 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Fremont, UT
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Mackinaw is in Utah’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Celeste Maloy (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →