Meadows ORV Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 1312 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Meadows ORV Campground is a small, 12 single site area primarily used by OHV riders. The sites accomodate trailers/RV's up to 25 feet in length. Keep reading
Recreation
ORV Riding: Passing just long the south edge of the campground is the Meadows ORV Trail System . This trail system was developed for vehicles 50 inches of less. The Meadows ORV trail connects to the Mack Lake Trail System and Bull Gap Hill Climb . The trail ranges anywhere from 0 to 10% grades with some short stretches of 30%. Confidence markers are orange triangles.
Facilities
Meadows ORV Campground provides visitors with a handpump well for drinking water, several vault toliets, and garbage collection services. Individual campsites provide a picnic table, a campfire ring, and a lantern post.
Natural Features
Meadows ORV Campground is nestled amoungst a pine and hardwood forest. The west branch of Big Creek is crossed by Meadows West Trail just to the southwest of the campground. Meadows ORV Campground is isolated from nearby light sources making it an excellent location for star gazing. Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (989) 826-3252.
Charges & Cancellations
All reservation changes, cancellations, and refunds are managed through Recreation.gov.
What the agency tells you
As a visitor to the National Forest, you are asked to follow certain rules designed to protect the Forest, natural resources and to provide for public safety of visitors. These rules are available to you online or at any office of the Huron-Manistee National Forests. Please take time to read and understand them. General Topic orders apply across the Forests. Applicable Orders: - Motorized Vehicle Use of Roads, Trails and Off-road Areas; R904-14-02 - Occupancy and Use - Developed Recreation Areas, Dispersed Areas, Being Publicly Nude, Marine Prohibitions, Parking and Sanitation; R904-14-03
Forest quiet hours apply.
Some sites are available on a first-come, first serve basis.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
You must occupy your site within 24 hours of the start of your reservation. Contact the Forest Service to request a late arrival or your site may be forfeited.
Do not tie or tack anything to standing trees, including but not limited to pets, laundry lines, or garbage bags.
You may use downed wood for firewood. Keep fires within the fire ring. Do not leave hot campfires unattended. Make sure your ashes are cool to the touch before you leave.
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
Fireworks and use of fireworks are not permitted.
ORVs may only be operated on roads and trails signed as open for their use. ORVs may not be used within campgrounds.
This site is not gated during the off season. It not maintained in winter. Access road and/or parking lot are not plowed. No toilet facilities are available.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 13
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 99 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…visitors with a handpump well for drinking water, several vault toliets, and garbage collection…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek, Meadow
- Off Road Vehicle Trails
- Stargazing
- Night sky · 137th darkest of 192 in MI
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 12 days ago, 30 km away
- Near peak
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:35 UTC
recreation.gov lists 12 of the 13 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
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 · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $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.
“All reservation changes, cancellations, and refunds are managed through Recreation.gov.” · 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 15:35 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
13 sites
All 13 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. 12 of the 13 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| 1 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $10 |
| 10 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | $10 |
| 11 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | $10 |
| 12 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | $10 |
| 13 | type not stated | 99 ft | |
| 2 | standard nonelectric | 80 ft | $10 |
| 3 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $10 |
| 4 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $10 |
| 5 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $10 |
| 6 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $10 |
| 7 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $10 |
| 8 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | $10 |
| 9 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $10 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Chimney Loop CampgroundHuron National Forest · 7.5 mi
Wagner Lake (MI)Huron National Forest · 8.0 mi
Island lake (MI)Huron National Forest · 8.9 mi
Wakeley Lake CampgroundHuron National Forest · 11 mi
Mack Lake ORV CampgroundHuron National Forest · 12 mi
Ausable River CampingHuron National Forest · 12 miFrom Grayling:
- Travel east on M-72 for 22 miles.
- Turn right and travel south on Deeter Rd. for 2 miles.
- Turn left and travel south on Durfee Rd./FR 4541 for 3 miles.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Mio, MI
Typical weather
Typical October night 36°F, day 58°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical February night 10°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
Meadows ORV 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 →