Bitely, Michigan: Nichols Lake National Forest Campground

July 2023, Nichols Lake National Forest South Campground, site 27

Campsite 27 in Nichol's Lake South Campground

Location and arrival

This campground is on the south side of Nichol's Lake, just west of M-37. The campground has 28 primitive campsites (that we saw). The reservation site says there are 29 campsites in this park, and the US Forest service website says there are 30. We only saw sites 1 -28. Some sites are available first come, first serve, and some can be reserved through the recreation.gov reservation site. We arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and more than half the sites were available. We could not choose an empty reservable site, however, because the host at this campground does not update the status like other national parks we have been to. Usually, the host has contact and posts signs on sites with upcoming reservation dates. If there is no reservation for the current night, then someone else can rent it. When we arrived, there were about 5 empty reservable sites with previous dates on the posts, and no upcoming dates. We were only staying one night, so I asked the host if it was okay to take once of the vacated sites that did not have an upcoming reservation tag on it. He said those sites can only be reserved. So, we moved down to campsite 27.

Campsite 27 in Nichol's Lake South Campground

Campsite 27

Campsite 27 turned out to be a better site than the one we had originally stopped on before walking over to talk with the host. 😁 This is the very last site on the outside of the loop. It is a spacious and private campsite. The tar pad was long enough for us to park our 25' trailer and our pickup truck. We did not even have to unhook our truck from the trailer.

Campsite 27 in Nichol's Lake South Campground

Amenities

This campground has flush toilets and showers. I thought the restroom and showers looked like they needed a good cleaning. There is a fresh water hand pump, and firewood and ice for sale. There is no sanitation station. 

Campsite 27 in Nichol's Lake South Campground

Recreation: hiking, swimming, boating

There is a boardwalk out to a small swimming beach in the campground, which is pretty sandy. A short hiking trail in the park runs along the water and out to the boat ramp, and North Country Trail goes through the park near the boat ramp. It was about a half mile hike from the boat ramp to our campsite, and the mosquitoes were thick! We observed small powerboats with fishermen, and leisure paddle boats in the lake near the boat ramp.

Misc. and overall

The lake was barely visible through the trees from our campsite. I imagine this is a beautiful campground in the fall! Unfortunately, the only photos I took were at our campsite after we arrived.

If anyone has any questions or photos to share, please let me know!