McKeever Cabin
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 27 of the next 30 nights read 16:34 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
McKeever Cabin is located in the Hiawatha National Forest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, approximately 14 miles south of Munising, Michigan. The Cabin was constructed in 1991 and overlooks the 132-acre McKeever Lake. While the facility offers little in the way of modern amenities, convenient access to a number of recreational activities, including hunting, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, swimming and cross-country skiing, make this cabin a desirable destination for the outdoors enthusiast. During warmer months, visitors may park their vehicle and access the cabin by foot via a 1,000 ft. trail. When snow is present, the cabin may be accessed by snowshoe or cross-country skis via a 1-mile trail. Keep reading
Recreation
During winter months, visitors can enjoy the McKeever Hills Ski Trail, which offers a quieter, less manicured alternative to highly groomed trails without sacrificing quality. The trail to the cabin connects directly to the ski trail, so visitors can ski right out the cabin door. The Bruno's Run Trail offers a 9 mile (14.48 km) loop ideal for hiking and mountain biking in spring, summer and fall and snow shoeing in winter. Although the trail is not groomed for cross-country skiing, it does offer a suitable source for experienced skiers who prefer to break their own way. Seasonal activities also include swimming, canoeing, kayaking and fishing on the lake as well as hunting in designated areas. See the Michigan Department of Natural Resource's website for information about hunting seasons and permits .
Facilities
The cabin can accommodate up to four people comfortably and a maximum of six people. There are two sets of bunk beds (with 4 mattresses), one table with stools, one counter top, one corner seat and a wood burning stove. There is no longer a loft with a mattress in this cabin. There are no modern bathroom facilities or electricity offered at this cabin. In order to ensure a comfortable stay, visitors must bring several of their own supplies including a camp stove, dishes, cooking utensils, containers for carrying water, toilet paper, lanterns, sleeping bags and pillows. A vault toilet is located just off the trail to the cabin and there is a (summer/winter) hand pump with drinking water located down the trail to the lake. Do not bring firewood from home: firewood will be supplied at the cabin.
Natural Features
The cabin is situated on a small knoll surrounded by young evergreens and hardwood trees, overlooking the western shores of McKeever Lake. The lake was stocked with northern muskie in 1990, but also supports a good population of northern pike, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and bluegill. The Big Island Lake Wilderness is located near the cabin and features 23 small lakes ranging in size from 5 to 149 acres. White birch, maple and aspen cover the wooded hills that surround the lakes. Berries, mushrooms and wildflowers grow throughout the area and a wide range of wildlife and waterfowl, including sensitive species, may be carefully observed here. Contact Info For local information, please call (906) 387-2512 or call (906) 474-6442 for general information.
What the agency tells you
A combination code is needed to access the cabin. Be sure to check your confirmation letter for the combination code
Check-in time is 2 p.m., check-out time is 12 p.m.
Cabin does not have electricity. You must bring all your own supplies including: camp stove, dishes, cooking and eating utensils, toilet paper, water containers, lanterns, flashlights, bedding and pillows.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
In winter, plan to ski or snowshoe approximately one mile on FR 2163 as it is not plowed.
Also in winter at times the water pump will freeze, so plan on packing in your own water.
No trash services; This facility is 'Pack it in, Pack it out'
Pets are allowed at this site but must be on a leash. Pets cannot be left alone in the cabin.
Tents, RVs and trailers may not be used in the vicinity of the cabin without prior written approval
Off road use of ATVs or OHVs is prohibited by law. Occupants are expected to clean the cabin and the grounds prior to departure.
Click here to learn more about the Hiawatha National Forest
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 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…lanterns, sleeping bags and pillows. A vault toilet is located just off the trail to the cabin and…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…the cabin and there is a (summer/winter) hand pump with drinking water located down the trail to the…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hunting
- Swimming
Full this Saturdayread 16:34 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:34 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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
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 · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:34 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.
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.
| MCKEEVER CABIN | CABIN1 | cabin nonelectric | 254 ft | $45 |
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
Ewing Point CampsiteHiawatha National Forest · 0.5 mi
Pete's Lake CampgroundHiawatha National Forest · 0.8 mi
Widewaters CampgroundHiawatha National Forest · 1.4 mi
Cookson Lake CampsitesHiawatha National Forest · 2.3 mi
Council Lake CampsitesHiawatha National Forest · 2.9 mi
Tom's Lake CabinHiawatha National Forest · 3.8 mi- McKeever Cabin does not have a physical address.
- Vehicle access from the North: Take M-28 to FH-13, which is 3 miles east of Munising. Proceed south on FH-13 for 11 miles to FR-2163, located across from the road that leads to the Widewaters Campground.
- Vehicle access from the South: Take US-2 to FH-13, which is about 25 miles west of Manistique. Proceed north on FH-13 for 22 miles to FR-2163.
- During the snow-free season: Proceed east on FR-2163 for about 1 mile. There will be brown signs with yellow arrows, to the signed parking area for McKeever Cabin. The non-paved trail to the cabin begins before the parking lot and is approximately 1,000 feet long. There is a sign with an arrow and the word "cabin" pointing down the appropriate trail.
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 38°F, day 52°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 11°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
McKeever Cabin 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 McKeever Cabin, Hiawatha National Forest, Michigan
Dear Jack Bergman, I’m a constituent in Michigan’s 1st district. I tried to camp at McKeever Cabin, Hiawatha National Forest, Michigan, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at McKeever Cabin 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. McKeever Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run McKeever Cabin. 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 McKeever Cabin (Hiawatha 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 McKeever Cabin, Hiawatha National Forest, Michigan
Dear Elissa Slotkin, I’m a constituent in Michigan. I tried to camp at McKeever Cabin, Hiawatha National Forest, Michigan, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at McKeever Cabin 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. McKeever Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run McKeever Cabin. 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 McKeever Cabin (Hiawatha 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 McKeever Cabin, Hiawatha National Forest, Michigan
Dear Gary C. Peters, I’m a constituent in Michigan. I tried to camp at McKeever Cabin, Hiawatha National Forest, Michigan, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at McKeever Cabin 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. McKeever Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run McKeever Cabin. 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 McKeever Cabin (Hiawatha National Forest, Michigan) via campanac.com