Soldier Lake Campground

Looked for a place not too far in Upper Peninsula to camp that was on the water for fishing. The lots are large but may be difficult to get into with a bigger RV. Rustic wooded area with vaulted toilets. BRING YOUR OWN WATER for cooking and drinking- the water is EXTREMELY hard- hard enough that it looks orange/brown! It has a small park/beach area for swimming and has a pavilion type building there. We caught a few panfish while there. You won’t feel crowded in this campground!

We stopped here after a 10-hour day and Canada to USA border crossing, and just needed a place to make dinner and rest our heads. This was perfect for just that. Sites are huge, and even though it's summer and a weekend, we've not a single neighbor in sight, though there are other folks in the campground. Decent service for AT&T, though depending on where I'm at in the Airstream, the signal varies. Main bulk of our site was clean, took a path down to a private beach that was littered with life vests, shoes, tubes, trash, cigarette butts. However, if I stay on this picnic table with my coffee, I can just enjoy the cool morning and lake view without the garbage in sight.

We were stuck late in the game looking for campsites around the 4th of July. This little spot in the middle of the eastern UP had a few open spots so we took a chance and headed there. The campsites surround Soldier Lake which is in the Hiawatha National Forest. On one end of the lake there is a beach with a day use area. Even though we were there during a holiday weekend, it usually only had a few people visiting. There are only pit toilets and the water station nearest to us wasn't working. The sites closest to the entrance were closer together and had a bit more sun, some have water access. The sites on the outermost loop were a bit more spread out and you can easily take the trail to the beach. There are other access points to the water, but they tend to be mucky. We had site #30 which I wouldn't recommend unless you are camping with someone else and they take site #29 (we had some strange unfriendly neighbors). I would recommend some of the sites on the back of the big loop (see pictures). They all seem really well laid out and flat with easy access. Overall, it was a bit loud at night with people setting off fireworks (pretty good ones) but on the night of the 4th, everyone had cleared out and it was nice and quiet. I would assume weekdays here would be really lovely. There is a caretaker, but we never saw anyone. The beach also could use a clean up, people tend to use it as an ashtray.