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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Road Trip Day 3; Little Brevoort Lake Campground, North Unit, Brevort Michigan, Upper Peninsula.

Night three of our camping road trip was spent west of St. Ignace about 20 miles outside of the small 'town' of Brevort on Little Brevoort Lake.  The campground is a primitive, self check-in campground in a dense pine forest beside Brevoort Lake in the Hiawatha National Forest. 
It was Wednesday evening and the campground had only 4 other occupants when we drove in at 8pm; we picked out a site far from the other campers with views of Little Brevoort Lake through the trees. The campground cost just $15 and offers a boat launch which attracts people for its fishing, pit toilets, nature watching, fresh water and a trailhead for hiking and biking. Even though we did not swim, the water was warm and fairly sandy near the picnic area; had it been a warmer day and there were less bugs, we would have jumped right in! Site numbers 9, 10, 11 have the best views of the lake, with some sites viewing the lake through the trees. All of the sites offer ample privacy.

Getting there: The campground is located just off Hwy 2, two miles northeast of the small ‘town’ of Brevort, follow the signs to the “North Brevort Campground, North Unit” just 2 miles off Hwy 2 on Worth Road; it’s also accessible from Ozark Road. We found this campground after noticing the sign while driving west on Hwy 2, and we followed the well marked signs from Hwy 2 to the campground. Click here for more information on Brevort.  The address is Hiawatha National Forest 1978 West US 2 St. Ignace, MI.


The Journey; We drove north from Muskegon Lake Campground to St. Ignace with several stops to visit friends along the way. Our plan was to find a campground on the beach in the Upper Peninsula somewhere after St. Ignace while driving west along Highway 2. We stopped at one private campground which had great views of the Mackinaw Bridge, but the sites were crowded and close together. Somehow we missed another campground or two that the map book suggested, so at about 8pm we were itching to get out of the car.   When we saw the signs for Brevort Campground about 20 miles west of St. Ignace we gladly followed them for 2 miles to the campground, and were pleasantly surprised when we arrived!
The campground was just our style, no frills, spacious sites, and few people, perfect! If we were looking for a site this late in the evening in Colorado, it would be dark, but in Michigan during the summer the sun doesn’t set until nearly 10pm. This allowed us to set up our small tent, and cook dinner of fresh fish and corn on the cob while the sun set over the lake. The one drawback, bugs! Mosquitoes, earwigs, spiders, and did I mention mosquitoes?!  Oh my, did we get bit! This is something that we’ve never taken for granted since moving to Colorado. We continued to apply our OFF and enjoyed the stars until we went to bed, itching the whole way. 

In a last ditch effort to stay cool in the humidity, we chose to leave the rain fly off the tent which was a great idea until the thunderstorms at 2am. Josh ran outside and added the rain fly, but not after getting soaked in the process. The rain ended by morning and we awoke to a small child riding his bike around the campground singing the “Scooby Doo” theme song at the top of his lungs. So much for peace and quiet! But with the late sunset comes a late sunrise, it was already 9am and barely light under the canopy of trees. We cooked ourselves breakfast of bacon and eggs, packed up our stuff, then walked over to the trailhead and hiked the Switchback Ridge Trail around Little Brevort Lake. By noon, our hike was complete, and we hit the road for Fayette State Park, southwest of Manistique in the Upper Peninsula. 



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