River And Lake Camps · Volume 3
North of Ludington: The Little Manistee, Bear Creek, and Udell Hills
Introduction
North of Ludington the forest changes character. The Pere Marquette country south of it is sand, jack pine and small lakes; up here the ground folds into the Udell Hills and the rivers cut down through it. This is the best water in the dive and, for a truck, the best road network.
⭐ THE FINDING THAT ORGANISES THIS VOLUME: the Little Manistee is the only major river in this dive with National Forest campgrounds strung directly along it. The Pere Marquette and the Pine are locked up in scenic-river corridors with designated sites only. The Little Manistee — a National Scenic Study River, studied but not designated — has three plain Forest Service campgrounds on its bank. Not being designated is why you can camp on it.
3.1 The Little Manistee River
Three National Forest campgrounds, all on the river:
Table 1 — Three National Forest campgrounds, all on the river:
| Campground | Where |
|---|---|
| Driftwood Valley | west of Irons, off 10 Mile Road |
| Bear Track | west of Irons, farther downstream, off 11 Mile Road |
| Old Grade | the third of the set |
⭐ This is the answer to the brief, and it took four volumes of rules to get here: sleep on the bank, legally, for a nominal fee, on a steelhead river. Driftwood Valley and Bear Track are the two to look at first.
The fishing. The Little Manistee is prime spawning water — steelhead, salmon and brown trout — and it is one of the tributaries that feeds the big runs. It is also the river the DNR runs its steelhead egg-take on, which is a fair indication of the quality of the run.
⚠ It gets busy where it meets the Manistee during the season. Upstream, west of Irons, is where the quiet is.
3.2 Bear Creek
Cold-water fishing, and the most restricted access in this volume.
🔴 There are no campgrounds and no designated campsites along Bear Creek on National Forest land, and the only access to the creek on National Forest land is the Bear Creek River Access Site. A 3.5-mile section flows through the forest.
Where you may camp: dispersed camping is permitted within the Semi-Primitive Nonmotorized Area, outside the river corridor.
🔴 Read that sentence twice, because it stacks three restrictions. Nonmotorized means the truck stays out. Outside the river corridor means back from the water. And the single access site means there is one legal way in. Bear Creek is a walk-in fishing day from a camp somewhere else — it is not a place to put a rig.
⭐ Which is exactly why it fishes well. A cold-water creek with one access point and no vehicles is the definition of off the beaten path, and it is a forty-minute walk rather than an expedition.
3.3 Udell Hills, and the road in
The hills east of Manistee, and the access corridor for this whole northern block. A published route into the area, as an example of what the road network actually looks like:
From Manistee, east on M-55 for 14 miles. Right and south on E. Udell Hills Road for 5.5 miles. Left and south on Skocelas Road for 0.5 miles. Left and east on Little River Road for 4 miles. Left and north on FR 5202 into the site.
⭐ That is the shape of every good approach in this dive — a state highway, then a named county road, then a numbered Forest Road, and the last leg is the one that decides whether you needed the truck. FR 5202 is the kind of road the brief was asking about, and it is a legitimate, numbered, mapped Forest Service road rather than a remembered logging trace.
🔴 Check it on the MVUM before driving it anyway. Numbered does not mean open; designations change, and seasonal closures are real here.
⚠ The North Country National Scenic Trail runs through this country — Upper River and Freesoil trailheads among others — which gives the area serious hiking without needing to move camp.
3.4 What this section is good for
This is the strongest single area in the dive for the full brief. Sleep on the Little Manistee at Driftwood Valley or Bear Track. Fish the Little Manistee from camp and Bear Creek on foot. Walk the North Country Trail out of Udell. Filter from the river you are camped on.
⚠ And it is about three hours from home, which makes it a Friday-night departure rather than a vacation — the most valuable property any destination in this project can have.
Cadillac/Manistee Ranger District covers the northern half of the forest.
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