Wagner Lake (MI)
- Right now
- OpenListed open; its database flags it not open
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 12All of them booked ahead
- Season
- May 1 – November 30Open May 1 through November 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Wagner Lake Campground is a small but popular 12 site campground set on the banks of Wagner Lake. This shallow lake is surrounded by National Forest System lands. Keep reading
Recreation
Water Activities: Wagner Lake provides visitors with an area for beach play and swimming. Visitors may also carry-in non-motorized watercraft such as canoes and kayaks for use on Wagner Lake. Fishing: Anglers can try their luck fishing from shore, a boat, or wadding into the lake. Wagner Lake has excellent bass and pan fish fishing.
Facilities
Wagner Lake Campground has handpump wells for drinking water, vault toliets, and garbage collection services. Each campsite has a picnic table, a campfire ring, a lantern post, and a paved parking pad.
Natural Features
Wagner Lake Campground is surrounded by a mixed hardwood forest. Wagner Lake is shallow sandy bottom lake. 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.
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.
Everything else this campground posts · 6
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.
Site is gated in the off season.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 12
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 70 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Lake Campground has handpump wells for drinking water, vault toliets, and garbage collection services.…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Birding
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Paddling
- Stargazing
- Swimming
- Water access
- Night sky · 138th darkest of 192 in MI
- Bortle 3
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:34 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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.
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, $15 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 15:34 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
12 sites
All 12 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 12 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Wagner Lake | 1 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 10 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 11 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 12 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 2 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 3 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 4 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 5 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 6 | standard nonelectric | 65 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 7 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 8 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $15 |
| Wagner Lake | 9 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | $15 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Chimney Loop CampgroundHuron National Forest · 0.5 mi
Island lake (MI)Huron National Forest · 3.0 mi
Mack Lake ORV CampgroundHuron National Forest · 4.4 miRiver Dune CampgroundHuron National Forest · 7.1 mi
Au Sable Loop CampgroundHuron National Forest · 7.1 mi
Ausable River CampingHuron National Forest · 7.1 miFrom Grayling:
- Travel east on M-72 for 30 miles.
- Turn right and travel south on M-33 for 7 miles.
- Turn right and travel west on Wagner Lake Rd. for 1 mile.
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 night of the open season: typical November night 28°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 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.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Wagner Lake (MI) 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 →